Lorena Pugh Biography

When Lorena was young she had two loves. The first was art and the second was animals. At seventeen she went to New York City with huge dreams. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute. She also studied at other reputable schools such as the Art Students League (NY), The school of Visual Arts (NY) and The Brian Shaw School of Art (London).

She spent the next few years in New York City striving to make art with great meaning. She called that period “the lean years”. Next she moved to Newport R.I. There was fresh air! There were cows! She just wanted to paint cows and so she did. It was fun. It was profitable! People like cows! Soon she had cow posters, cow calendars, cow T-shirts. She soon mooooved onto other animals and created a poster series, which was under her name at the time—-Steinhauser, published by Arnold Art. Wild Apple Graphics became her second poster publisher.

After painting cows, pigs, ducks and bunnies she decided to paint something she loved. She loved her dog Lucy. She found that dogs afford an endless supply of character studies and a lovely outlet for her peculiar sense of humor.

Now she publishes many of these paintings as limited edition prints. She calls her business “Purebred Editions”. Things are going well. Many of her prints have won the esteemed Communication Art Award of Excellence five years in a row. For four years her paintings have been winners at the Contemporary American Dog Art Competition and four times have received Honorable Mentions from the Society of Illustrators. Most recently her painting “Chocolate Craving” won first place at the prestigious juried art show “Art Show at the Dog Show” and the other entry “Stay” won the peoples choice award. So as Lorena likes to say her art has “gone to the dogs” and she couldn’t be happier!