Memory artists are people who paint from memory, for memory. They paint to preserve an era now gone, when farming in the Plains and Prairies was a family enterprise not yet subsumed by modernity. Their generational cohort saw the old ways of diversified family farming become obsolete, transformed by automation, feedlots, and insecticide-laden cash crops. The artists assuaged angst about their loss by painting memory pictures; they became the caretakers of living memory, keeping the rural and agricultural story alive by preserving an era and place in imagery.

The memory painters are unschooled in the ways of fine art, yet they communicate a story through their paintings that resonates with their audience. The artists never met one another and emerge from different cultures, yet the images they portray consistently illustrate the commonalities of their rural and agricultural settings. Their oeuvre commemorates people at work and at play in the early twentieth century.

The memory painters illustrate the convergence of human development and historical event, made more interesting by the powerful constructs of memory and collective memory. The biographical narratives of the five memory artists presented here reveal sensual attentiveness to environment, insightful perspectives of the agricultural experience that shaped their identities, and the historical context that informs their painted recollections.

Memory artists are defined by three characteristics: they document regional identity and history; they commemorate an era and a place; and they all share psychological aspects of human development, specifically, the formation and recollection of memory, collective memory, and generativity. The soul-searching period of generativity often results in tasks that display a mindset that says I care about my culture and wish to regenerate what I know.

Imposing human development theory upon the historical study of memory artists of the Great Plains reveals that age and identity have everything to do with the authenticity and significance of the memory artists' oeuvre. The memory artists are not to be studied solely on the merits of their art, but rather as philosophers of rural and agricultural living, preserving an era and a place from memory, for memory.