He produced illustrations for National Geographic magazine and many others, and painted many historical Western subjects such as interactions between Indians and white settlers and traders.

[4] He was a keen reader as a child, and although he received no early training in art, he often visited the Museum of Natural History in New York, beginning a fascination with Native American objects and weapons.

[5] In 1940 Lovell and his family moved to an artists colony at Westport, Connecticut, where he became close friends with Harold von Schmidt, John Clymer, and Robert Lougheed.

[5] In his junior year at Syracuse, Lovell sold drawings to popular "pulp" Western, gangster and detective magazines.

In the early 1930s Lovell shared a studio space in New York with Harry Anderson and Al (Nick) Carter.

[7] After 1936, Lovell progressed into providing illustrations for advertising agencies and slick magazines such as Redbook, Life, Collier's, The American, Woman's Home Companion, and Cosmopolitan.

He was sent as a Staff Sergeant to Washington DC with John Clymer and Fred Lasswell to illustrate the Marine Corps magazine, Leatherneck.

On returning to Westport Lovell produced a set of historical drawings for National Geographic Magazine, including depictions of the Norman invasion of England, the career of Alexander the Great, and the conquests of the Vikings.

[8] In 1969, under commission from the Abell-Hanger Foundation, Lovell produced a series of paintings commemorating the history of the Southwest that are now on permanent display at the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum, Midland, Texas.

[9] In 2006, the NRM put several of Lovell's paintings on display as part of the exhibition "National Geographic: The Art of Exploration".

With a few well chosen words, a writer can set the scene, whereas an artist must know the costumes, the weapons, what the interiors looked like, the horse tack – all the thousand things to make it come alive.