Walter Graham was born in rural Illinois in 1903. As a child he preferred animals and scenery as the subjects of his drawings and doodling. He attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and became a book illustrator for a national publisher. In 1939 he helped form a commercial art studio in Chicago and during the summers would travel to Wyoming and Montana to paint and sketch. In 1950 he decided to become a full-time Western artist. After visiting his sister in Wenatchee he consider this area a veritable artists paradise. He moved here and earned commissions for painting portraits murals and creating sculptures. Mr. Graham was a prolific painter and left a large collection of are upon his death in May of 2000 at the age of 97. He did not believe in the print market and so all of his paintings are original he is best known for his Western landscapes and wildlife. His popular horsepower mural is 35 ft wide and 16 ft high and portrays a cascade of horses falling through blue-green water and bubbling into a force of white stallions at the base of the dam. Graham’s attention to shadow and form brings the images to life. The horses appear to jump off the surface of the canvas and give true meaning to the term horsepower.