John Sherman Register; Painter of L.A. Cityscapes

John Sherman Register, who walked out on a Madison Avenue advertising career to become a successful painter known for his canvases of Los Angeles cityscapes, old train stations and abandoned desert cafes, has died. He was 57.

Register died Tuesday of cancer at his Malibu home, according to his biographer, Barnaby Conrad III.

The artist’s work has been shown at the David Stuart Gallery in Los Angeles, the Earl McGrath Gallery in Santa Monica, the Laguna Art Museum and the Modernism Gallery in San Francisco. The San Jose Museum of Art plans a major retrospective of Register’s work in 1997 that will travel across the United States.

In 1986, the Guggenheim Museum awarded Register its Francis J. Greenburger Foundation Award to “acknowledge artists of extraordinary merit who have not yet achieved wide public recognition.” Conrad published his biography, “John Register,” in 1989.

“Register’s meticulous oils depicting deserted interiors and misty views beyond them evoke memories of an earlier America in a tone of [artist Edward] Hopper-like estrangement,” Times art writer Suzanne Muchnic noted during a show of his work in 1986.

Register had a meteoric advertising career, becoming senior vice president at McCaffrey & McCall and associate creative art director at Ogilvy & Mather. But he decided painting would make him happier and, at age 33, abruptly left a Madison Avenue meeting saying he was going to the dentist. He never returned.

Register is survived by his wife, Catherine; his mother, Dorothy Pratt Barrett; three children, Peter, David and Katie, and his grandson, John Sherman Register II. The family has asked that any memorial contributions be sent to the Hospice Foundation, 2601 Airport Drive, Suite 110, Torrance, CA 90505-6193.