About Ned Paynter

EDWARD ‘NED’ PAYNTER (1935 – 2007)

Ned Paynter was born in Victoria, B.C., Canada, and moved to San Diego as a teen-ager with his family. He received a B.A. and M.A. from San Diego State University and a Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Paynter was an historian of the United States who, since 1982, taught as an adjunct instructor at San Diego Mesa College. During his varied career as an academic he taught also at San Diego State University, University of East Anglia in England, the University of Missouri, St. Louis, and the Goethe Institute of Anglo and American Studies in Frankfurt, West Germany, as well as on U.S. Navy ships.

Through April 2007, Dr. Paynter was a formidable presence in the classroom. Students respected him for his determination and enthusiasm about subjects he addressed in his lectures, from the history of ethnic relations to the role of the United States in international affairs.

He had encyclopedic knowledge of architecture, jazz and baseball, and he was a gifted artist and photographer. Dr. Paynter wrote a blog, under the byline The Irate Codger (Iratecodger.blogspot.com) and, when his time and energy permitted, he turned to political cartooning (captain-freedom.blogspot.com).

He had a longstanding involvement with public radio. He was the News Director for KPFA in Berkeley. At KWMU in St. Louis, he reviewed movies and was a disc jockey on his own jazz show. And he provided commentaries on many subjects for KPBS, the public radio station in San Diego.

Dr. Paynter was a great fan of Friends of San Diego Architecture and made several presentations—the last was “London After the Millennium” in 2006. He traveled extensively, always with his camera at the ready to photograph the great architecture of the world. It would delight him to know his collection is once again being shared.

The complete Collection is now online. Some of the images you see will be resources of historical photos, plans for buildings, copies of images from research material used for his classes.  Note: A password is needed to view 30  galleries in the Teaching Aids Collection. To see the entire collection, go to the Ned Paynter Collection

Landscapes Around the World


Selection of Frank Lloyd Wright Images

Selection of Louis Kahn Images