Born in 1923 in Clementon, New Jersey, Wayne Beam Morrell graduated from Lincoln Preparatory School in Philadelphia, PA, and attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art. At the suggestion of his grandfather, he took a fourteen-week course of a government-sponsored evening course on aeronautics and drafting at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He also took a correspondence course through the Famous Artists School, a well-known and respected correspondence school for commercial art, during the 1950s and 60s, located in Westport, Connecticut. Morrell worked as a commercial designer for John Oldham Studios in Wethersfield, Connecticut, a company that made exhibits for the United Aircraft Corporation and other in space technology companies. His work was shown in the late 1950s at the Paris Air Show and the Brussels World’s Air Show, trade fairs demonstrating military and civilian aircraft. Largely self-taught, artist Wayne Beam Morrell first began painting in earnest in 1953, focusing on murals. The success of his first exhibition in 1956, led to his leaving his job as a commercial designer in 1961 to pursue fine art full time. Morrell lived in Rockport, Massachusetts and was a member of Allied Artists of America; Springfield Academy of Artists; Salmagundi Club; and Rockport Art Association. He exhibited at the National Academy of Design; Allied Artists of America (New York, 1972); Rock port Art Association (1972); expos Intercontinentale, (Monaco, France, 1969, Jane Peterson prize); Council of American Art Societies (awards, 1971); Allied Artists of America (gold medal); and Rockport Art Association ( 1970).
