About the artist

All-American ballplayer. Self-taught with a pencil.

Terry grew up the fifth of eight children on a large farm west of Jacksonville, in southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley. He loved baseball from early on, playing in Medford from the fifth grade, and by high school the professional scouts were watching him.

At the University of Oregon, where he played from 1954 to 1957 and majored in geology, he became one of only five first-team All-Americans in the Ducks’ baseball history: three times all-Northern Division, first as a pitcher and then as an outfielder, team captain, and the team’s most valuable player in 1955. From 1958 to 1962 he played minor league ball for the Salem Senators and the Eugene Emeralds.

He then taught for thirty years in the Springfield School District, coached baseball at Springfield High School from 1966 to 1975, and served as president of the State Baseball Coaches’ Association.

In 1975, at 42, he picked up a pencil and began drawing in his own self-taught style. The same hand-eye coordination that made him a ballplayer gave his drawings their vivid detail and depth. At first glance they look like photographs, yet they have a softness that sets them apart. His drawings began in black and white; many of the lithograph prints were then tinted, one by one, in watercolor. He completed hundreds of drawings, more than 150 of them in print.

For some 35 years he showed at prestigious art shows and festivals across the West, often taking top honors, and placed in the National Parks “Art in the Parks Top 100” in 1988 and 1989. He was inducted into the University of Oregon Athletics Hall of Fame in 2006, the Springfield Hall of Fame in 2017 and the Medford Sports Hall of Fame in 2022.

Terry passed away on January 4, 2021, in the care of his family. His drawings remain in homes, restaurants and collections around the world.