About the artist:

Philip Standish Read was born on June 22nd, 1927 in the village of Dobbs Ferry, New York. He studied art at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., but Paris shaped his identity as an artist. In the French capital, he studied at the Academie Julian, a small Bohemian art school, and socialized with collector Peggy Guggenheim. Among his friends were surrealist artist Max Ernst, and writer and filmmaker Jean Cocteau. Surrealism had a profound influence on the collages, assemblages and smaller paintings Read made for his own pleasure. Read continued his art studies in Rome and at the Art Students League in New York.

He began his career as a freelance package designer for the New York industrial design firms Raymond Lowey and Russell Wright Associates. In time, he graduated to painting murals for department stores, banks and restaurants. The muralists' craft required Read to master a variety of styles - impressionism, modernism, classicism, Orientalism - whatever the market demanded. The eclecticism spilled over into his private work. His West Palm Beach studio looked as though it were filled with the work of a team of artists rather than one man.

The logo Philip Standish Read designed for himself sums up his philosophy of life better than anyone else could. The phrase "love, laugh & live" flows from the profile of a classical head. Read was a mural painter who decorated several homes in Palm Beach, and an artist of 1,000 styles. Read's 4,000- square-foot home and studio in a former bottled water warehouse in West Palm Beach was packed from floor to ceiling with his paintings, collages and assemblages. It was just one of many distinctive habitats he transformed. His homes were usually recycled buildings. He converted an 1848 church on Long Island, N.Y., and barns in North Carolina and southwest France into character-filled studios and living quarters. His cars were frequently unusual, too. At different points in his life, he drove an ambulance and a Cadillac hearse, in part because they had plenty of room for carrying paintings.

Read had a gift for creating environments and making people feel welcome in them. West Palm Beach caterer Ann Z. King recalled visiting Read's converted barn overlooking the mountains in Highlands, N.C. "Everyone would come," she said. "We would all cook, sing and dance together. We'd light fires and roast chestnuts and go for long walks." King fondly remembered their long talks about art and philosophy.

Read's business was transforming everyday spaces into anywhere his clients wanted to be. He made a lucrative living painting murals. His murals, executed with great expertise in the Venetian trompe l'oeil style, adorned the home of many Palm Beachers, including Prince Michel de Bourbon, Michael Paul, Robert and Arlette Gordon, Thomas Nicholson and Ann Light. Other clients included Allen Funt, Bobo Rockefeller and Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper. His art was shown at Tiffany's and Cartier's on Fifth Avenue in New York and at galleries in New York, Palm Beach and elsewhere. He got his start in Palm Beach painting a botanical motif on the door of Martha Phillips' women's clothing boutique on Worth Avenue.

Others who commissioned his murals include retailers Lord & Taylor and Bergdorf Goodman, the Boca Raton Resort and Club, the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., and Schrafft's sweet shop in New York. Mayflower roots Read, who traced his lineage back to pilgrim forefather Miles Standish.

Philip Standish Read died in 2000 of lymphoma at Hospice of Palm Beach County in West Palm Beach. He was 73.