Mammoth Lake

oil on board, 12" x 16"

Haig S. Arklin was born in Armenia on August 22, 1881. He settled in Los Angeles in 1895. Arklin lectured at the Ebell Club on famous masterpieces and made copies of these works which were used in his lectures. He died in Los Angeles on June 5, 1965.

Sacramento Valley

oil on canvas, 20" x 36"

William Weaver Armstrong was born in Ontario, New York on April 4, 1862, the son of Mary Weaver and Bradley Armstrong. The Armstrong family moved to California in 1876 and settled in Oakland.

William’s only art training appears to have been from his father who was a talented painter. While maintaining a studio in Oakland, he made many painting trips in northern California from Santa Cruz to the Oregon border.

A loner and a quiet, taciturn man, on one of these trips he married an Indian girl named Grace, much to the consternation of his parents.

He was first listed in the Oakland City Directory in 1884 as a farmer at 509 East Fourteenth Street; by 1887 he was listed as an artist at 1351 Telegraph Avenue; in 1903 as a partner of B. F. Jenkins at 364 7th Street; in 1906 as a carriage painter.

During his short life span he became a competent and prolific painter of California scenery. Exposure to bad weather led to his death of tuberculosis in Oakland on November 26, 1906.

Exhibited: Mechanics' Institute (SF), 1885, 1888. Works held: Nevada Museum (Reno); Governor's Mansion (Carson City, NV); Oakland Museum.

Landscape

oil on canvas, 15" x 24"

Hermina was probably a daughter of the well-known painter Fortunato Arriola. She was a resident of San Francisco in 1879 and San Diego in 1908-16. Her trail is lost at that time.

Sierra Lake

oil on board, 10" x 15"

Ida Dobson Babcock was born in Darlington, Wisconsin on February 23, 1860. Ida was a pupil of George D. Brush, William Lippincott, and Charles F. Browne. nBy 1932 she had married Elmer Babcock and settled in Redlands, CA where she soon became active in the local art scene. She died there on March 15, 1942. Her painting forays into the nearby deserts produced many landscapes, often with verbenas or other desert flowers. Member: San Bernardino County Art Ass'n; Artists Council (Los Angeles). Works held: University of Nebraska Gallery (Lincoln).

Merced River, 1912

oil on canvas, 22" x 36"

Henry Howard Bagg was born in Wauconda, Illinois on June 30, 1852. He worked in Kansas before accepting a position to teach at Nebraska State Normal School in Peru. He later was a teacher at Cotner College (1902-16) and Nebraska Wesleyan University (1906-19). For many years he had a studio in Lincoln, NE while leading an itinerant existence with many trips to California and all over the West. Primarily an oil painter of western scenes, he also painted religious genre for churches in Omaha and Lincoln. He painted several hundred calendar subjects for Thomas D. Murphy Company in Iowa and the Osborn Calendar Company in New York. Examples of his Yosemite paintings are amply illustrated in the book Seven Wonders of the American West (Thomas D. Murphy, 1925). Bagg died in Lincoln, Nebraska on July 23, 1928. Works held: Joslyn Museum (Omaha).

Old School House

oil on board, 12" x 15"

Harry Lewis Bailey was born in St Louis, Missouri on December 2, 1879. He was educated at the St Louis School of Fine Arts. Due to health problems he relocated to southern California about 1907. After a few years in Ocean Park, he settled in Los Angeles. Life was difficult for artists during the Depression. With his art career on hold, he worked in a furniture store until his suicide on May 17, 1933. Member: California Art Club; California Society of Etchers; California Printmakers Society. Exhibited: Steckels (Los Angeles), 1908; California Art Club, 1914, 1927; Panama-California Expo (San Diego), 1915 (bronze medal); Barkers (Los Angeles), 1917; Printmakers of Los Angeles, 1916-29.

Midsummers Day

oil on canvas, 15" x 19"

Clifford Park Baldwin was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on February 14, 1889. By 1926 he had settled in southern California. While living in Montrose and Carlsbad, he was a pupil of Jean Mannheim, Paul Lauritz, and George Demont Otis. While on the staff of the Southwest Museum from 1933-41, he illustrated the books Gypsum Cave and Navajo Weaving. Baldwin died in Oceanside, California on July 3, 1961. Member: Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles; Carlsbad-Oceanside Art Club. Works held: Southwest Museum (Los Angeles).

La Crescenta Mountains

oil on canvas, 20" x 24"

Oliver Glen Barrett was born in Illinois on October 19, 1903. He moved to Los Angeles in 1921 and settled in Glendale. He was author of a book entitled The Fascinating Art of Landscape Painting (1946). A prolific landscape painter, Barrett was inspired by the natural beauty of the mountains and deserts around his home in Glendale. He died there on June 2, 1970.

Trinity Alps

oil on canvas, 13" x 17"

Frederick Bauer was born in Germany in 1857. He appears to have been well trained in his native land. By the 1880s he had immigrated to California and in 1886 became a United States citizen in Visalia. Upon moving north he lived in San Francisco and Fresno until about 1928. His trail is then lost. Bauer painted in the realistic style of the Düsseldorf School. His California subjects include the Trinity Alps, coastal scenes, Chinatown and Indian genre. Exhibited: Fresno County Fair, 1891 (first prize); Presbyterian Fair (Fresno), 1896.

Old Castroville

oil on canvas, 22" x 28"

Joseph Hastings Bennett Jr. was a talented etcher, painter, and printmaker. He was born in San Diego, California on March 27, 1889. He spent most of his life in the San Francisco Bay area where he was a pupil of Armin Hansen and Arthur Hill Gilbert. The influence of his teachers is seen in his coastals, landscapes, and cowboy genre. He died in Orinda, California on on September 11, 1969. Member: California Printmakers Society; California Society of Etchers; Society of Western Artists; Walnut Creek Art Ass'n; Laguna Beach Art Ass'n; Carmel Art Ass'n. Exhibited: Oakland Art Gallery, 1933-39; Paul Elder Gallery (San Francisco), 1933; Bay Region Art Ass'n, 1935; California Printmakers Society, 1935, 1936; Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939; Society of Western Artists, 1959 (first prize). Works held: Library of Congress Print Collection.

Duck Hunters

oil on board, 22" x 28"

Joseph Hastings Bennett Jr. was a talented etcher, painter, and printmaker. He was born in San Diego, California on March 27, 1889. He spent most of his life in the San Francisco Bay area where he was a pupil of Armin Hansen and Arthur Hill Gilbert. The influence of his teachers is seen in his coastals, landscapes, and cowboy genre. He died in Orinda, California on on September 11, 1969. Member: California Printmakers Society; California Society of Etchers; Society of Western Artists; Walnut Creek Art Ass'n; Laguna Beach Art Ass'n; Carmel Art Ass'n. Exhibited: Oakland Art Gallery, 1933-39; Paul Elder Gallery (San Francisco), 1933; Bay Region Art Ass'n, 1935; California Printmakers Society, 1935, 1936; Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939; Society of Western Artists, 1959 (first prize). Works held: Library of Congress Print Collection.

Forest Scene

oil on canvas, 6" x 9"

John W. Berglund was born in Sweden in 1867. He worked in San Francisco from 1920 and into the early 1930s as a linotype operator. In his leisure he painted fine art. An Impressionist, he used small, feathery brush strokes to create coastal scenes and landscapes. With the onset of the Depression, he is believed to have returned to Sweden.

Mountain Landscape

oil on canvas, 30" x 20"

Arthur William Best was born in Mount Pleasant, Canada on July 17, 1859. He and his brother Harry attended public school in Mount Pleasant and were members of a small band. Arthur played the cornet; Harry, the violin. When the band broke up in Oregon, the brothers learned to paint before moving to San Francisco in 1895. Arthur and his wife Alice established the Best Art School at 1625 California Street and a residence at 309 Broderick. He was a staff artist for the San Francisco Examiner (1904-06). Arthur was commissioned by Southern Pacific Railroad to paint pictures of the Southwest and Mexico for travel and tourist publicity in 1905. Many of his oils and watercolors were destroyed by the earthquake and fire of 1906. His landscapes include depictions of the Arizona desert, Grand Canyon and the Sierra Nevada. He died in Oakland on January 26, 1935. Member: San Francisco Art Ass'n; Berkeley League of Fine Arts; Bohemian Club. Exhibited: Oregon State Fair, 1891 (first prize); Mark Hopkins Art Institute, 1898, 1904; San Francisco Art Ass'n, 1904-16; San Francisco Artists Society, 1905; Berkeley Art Ass'n, 1908; California State Fairs (awards); Alaska-Yukon Expo (Seattle), 1909 (bronze medal); Del Monte Art Gallery, 1910, 1912; Sorosis Club, 1913. Works held: Oakland Museum; Phoenix Museum; University of Oregon; Charles M. Russell Gallery (Great Falls, MT); Santa Fe Railroad.

Colorful Hillside

oil on canvas, 14" x 20"

Arthur William Best was born in Mount Pleasant, Canada on July 17, 1859. He and his brother Harry attended public school in Mount Pleasant and were members of a small band. Arthur played the cornet; Harry, the violin.

When the band broke up in Oregon, the brothers learned to paint before moving to San Francisco in 1895.

Arthur and his wife Alice established the Best Art School at 1625 California Street and a residence at 309 Broderick. He was a staff artist for the San Francisco Examiner (1904-06).

Arthur was commissioned by Southern Pacific Railroad to paint pictures of the Southwest and Mexico for travel and tourist publicity in 1905. Many of his oils and watercolors were destroyed by the earthquake and fire of 1906. His landscapes include depictions of the Arizona desert, Grand Canyon and the Sierra Nevada.

He died in Oakland on January 26, 1935.

Member: San Francisco Art Ass'n; Berkeley League of Fine Arts; Bohemian Club. Exhibited: Oregon State Fair, 1891 (first prize); Mark Hopkins Art Institute, 1898, 1904; San Francisco Art Ass'n, 1904-16; San Francisco Artists Society, 1905; Berkeley Art Ass'n, 1908; California State Fairs (awards); Alaska-Yukon Expo (Seattle), 1909 (bronze medal); Del Monte Art Gallery, 1910, 1912; Sorosis Club, 1913. Works held: Oakland Museum; Phoenix Museum; University of Oregon; Charles M. Russell Gallery (Great Falls, MT); Santa Fe Railroad.

Sierra Foothills

oil on board, 16" x 20"

Walafried Mathias Beyerle, a painter and lithographer, was born in Germany on October 24, 1902. He settled in San Francisco in 1929. For many years he was an employee of the Schmidt Lithograph Company. He died in San Francisco on May 1, 1971. Exhibited: Society for Sanity in Art, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1940 (still life).

Mountain Stream

oil on canvas, 24" x 30"

George Sanders Bickerstaff was born on June 7, 1893 in Marianna, Arkansas. He was a self-taught artist except for a brief period at the Art Institute of Chicago. He worked in Texas before moving to California in 1922. His early years were spent in San Diego, Van Nuys, and Los Angeles; whereas, he later moved north to Ukiah where he remained until his death on July 12, 1954. A prolific oil painter of mountain and desert scenes, his landscapes often include eucalypti as well as rolling hills of poppies, lupines, and other California wildflowers. Occasionally, he painted seascapes, still lifes, and western and Indian scenes. Typically his signature was simply, "Bickerstaff." He was adept at promoting his own work and sold many of them to decorate hotel lobbies, hospitals, rest homes, and mortuaries. His thousands of landscapes vary from prosaic potboilers to inspired, painterly canvases. He exhibited several times in Van Nuys and with Paul Lauritz. One of his large oils entitled Buffalo Gap once hung in the Abilene (Texas) City Hall and is now in the museum in Buffalo Gap, Texas.

Hunters Point

oil on board, 10" x 16"

August F. Bilz was born in Germany on March 6, 1871. He was a sign painter in Des Moines, Iowa in 1930. He later settled in San Francisco where he remained until his demise on September 6, 1961.

Grand Canyon

oil on board, 12" x 18"

Biography unavailable

Azusa, 1936

oil on board, 12" x 18"

Frederick Augustus Blatz was born in New York on March 3, 1897. He moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1906. He died there on June 13, 1980. An accomplished artist, his works are rare.

Rural Setting

oil on canvas, 12" x 18"

Ruth Boscarino was born in North Carolina on February 14, 1907. She appears to have moved to California about 1940. After settling in Ventura, she remained there until her demise on September 12, 1985. A competent landscape painter, her works are rare.

Lake Scene

oil on board, 12" x 18"

L. Pierre Bottemer was an itinerant artist who traveled widely in the U.S. About 1950 he established a studio-home in Laguna Beach where he painted many seascapes and coastals, often with sunsets. In the 1970s he had a studio in Pompano Beach, Florida. He is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Fort Lauderdale.

Mountain Landscape

oil on board, 7" x 9"

George Frederick Breckenridge was born in Minnesota on February 25, 1882. During the 1930s he painted colorful landscapes of the southern California deserts.

He died in Santa Barbara, California on Sept. 30, 1954.

Mount Tamalpais

oil on canvas, 20" x 24"

Cecil Ramona Brehman was born in Ohio on May 13, 1914. She was painting at an early age. While a resident of Alameda during the 1920s, she painted still lifes, landscapes of the San Francisco Bay area and the coast at La Jolla. She often signed her paintings with the super imposed monogram CRB. Her married name was Webb at the time of her demise in Mendocino, California on April 3, 1989. Exhibited: Oakland Art Gallery, 1928; Santa Cruz Art League, 1928.

Late Afternoon

oil on board, 11" x 14"

Alphonso Herman Broad was born in East Eddington, Maine in 1851. He settled in Berkeley, California in 1877. The next year he was elected to the first board of trustees of the newly incorporated town and served as town marshal. In 1880 he went into business as a building contractor and designer, and became well known in Oakland and Berkeley for his Eastlake-style cottages. Some of his buildings in Berkeley include the Whittier School, LeConte School, and Columbus School. He was a highly successful businessman when he took up oil painting as an avocation. A self-taught artist, he received criticism from his neighbor William Keith with whom he made many sketching expeditions into the Sierra Nevada and surrounding country. His palette invariably held his own shade of "apple green." It was his custom to paint a landscape to be hung in a certain spot in a house he had finished. Broad died at his home at 2030 Bancroft Way on March 25, 1930. Works held: Odd Fellows Temple and Elks Club (Berkeley); Oakland Museum.

Mountain Trail, 1937

oil on canvas, 16" x 20"

Sidney Lorenzo Brock was born in Missouri on August 3, 1869. He was in Oklahoma City in 1910-20, Denver in 1930 and a few years later moved to Los Angeles. He died there on March 18, 1943. His works are rare.

Redwoods

oil on canvas, 14" x 16"

Buell Robins Brown was born in Tennessee on February 12, 1888. By the 1920s she had moved to California. She died in Los Angeles on Feb. 12, 1971. Her rare landscapes include scenes of the redwoods.

Oak Trees

oil on canvas, 16" x 20"

William Howell Bull, a painter and illustrator, was born in Buffalo, New York on January 26, 1861. He moved to Northern California in 1882.

During 1893 he spent seven weeks in the Kings River Canyon.

After 1901 he was a resident of San Mateo, California. With Gottardo Piazzoni, Xavier Martinez, C. P. Neilson, Blendon R. Campbell, and Matteo Sandona, he cofounded the California Society of Artists in 1902 as a reaction to conservative attitudes of the local art association which restricted younger artists.

After 1915 he illustrated for Sunset magazine as well as for the Southern Pacific Railroad and Stanford University.

He died at his home in San Mateo on June 15, 1940.

Although rare, his works include landscapes of the Valley of the Moon, Yosemite, and other scenic spots in northern California.

Exhibited: San Francisco Art Ass'n, 1900. Works held: Railroad Museum (Sacramento).

Mount Shasta, 1904

oil on canvas, 16" x 24"

Biography unavailable

Late Afternoon

oil on board, 10" x 14"

Leola Hall was born in San Leandro, California on June 18, 1878, the daughter of a cement contractor. She was a pupil of Raymond Yelland at the School of Design, and for 13 years studied with William Keith whose influence is evident in her works. She was a close friend of the Dollar family and many of her landscapes and views of Mount Diablo were painted on the Dollar ranch (now Rossmoor) near Walnut Creek. She was also a fine portraitist whose sitters included Senator Burton Wheeler of Montana, Fremont Older, August Vollmer, David S. Jordan of Stanford University, poet Edwin Markham, and the mother of Joaquin Miller (as well as paintings of buildings on his property which is now part of the Redwood National Forest). Leola was also a popular architect of about 50 well-designed homes along College and Ashby avenues in Berkeley as well as her own home at 2929 Piedmont Avenue. The homes she built were of the craftsman style and are often confused with those of Julia Morgan. Most were built before 1912, the year she married Herbert Coggins. After that time she concentrated on painting and politics, having been active for many years in civic affairs as a women's suffrage leader. She died at the family home in Berkeley on September 22, 1930. A picture of the artist is on page 336 of the Keith biography by Brother Cornelius. Exhibited: California State Fair, 1899-1902; San Francisco Art Ass'n, 1901-12; California Artists, Palace of Fine Arts, 1921; Oakland Art Gallery, 1928; Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939; Alameda County Building, 1939 (solo). Works held: Oakland Museum; Berkeley Architectural Heritage Ass'n; Bancroft Library (UC Berkeley).

Tiburon, 1933

oil on board, 9" x 11"

Isabel Margaret Porter was a painter, photographer, and craftsman. She was born in Petaluma, California on March 6, 1875 and graduated from San Jose Normal School about 1898. After two years at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute, she worked for Shreve & Company for a few years as a pen-and-ink artist for greeting cards, place cards, etc. From Dirk Van Erp she learned coppersmithing and produced lamps, shades, pen trays, and other hammered copper objects. In 1906 she moved across the bay to Sausalito, married Henry Collins, and built a home at 885 Bridgeway. She then taught in the public schools of the San Francisco Bay area until retirement about 1945. Exhibited: San Francisco Art Ass'n, 1896, 1901; California State Fair, 1900 (gold medal). Works held: California State Library; California Historical Society.

Mountain Landscape

oil on canvas, 24" x 28"

Ralph William Holmes was born in La Grange, Illinois on October 1, 1876. He grew up in Illinois and studied at Northwestern University and AIC. After further art study in Paris, he joined the faculty at Art Institute of Chicago (1903-12) followed by five years at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. In 1918 he moved to southern California and established a home in Atascadero. He was active as a muralist and as an instructor at Otis Art Institute (1923-48). Holmes died in Atascadero, California on February 6, 1963. His landscapes of Yosemite and Bryce Canyon as well as the desert and rolling hills of southern California have brought him national fame. Member: Los Angeles Art Ass'n; Academy of Western Painters (Los Angeles); California Art Club (president, 1939-41); Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles (president, 1936-38); Long Beach Art Ass'n; American Artists Congress; Laguna Beach Art Ass'n. Exhibited: Carnegie Institute, 1915 (silver medal); Atascadero Art Ass'n, 1918; Oakland Art Gallery, 1919; Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles, 1926, 1932 (gold medal); California State Fair, 1930; Santa Cruz Art League, 1934; Santa Paula, 1940 (1st prize); Golden Gate International Exposition, 1940; Gump's (San Francisco), 1940; Glendale Art Ass'n, 1950.

California Coast, 1968

oil on canvas, 18" x 24"

Louis Blake Angelo was born in Kansas on February 7, 1911. He was a long-time resident of Los Angeles. While working as an engineer at Doulas Aircraft, he painted traditional landscapes and coastal scenes in his leisure. He died Long Beach, California on October 13, 1985.

Rockaway Beach

oil on board, 16" x 20"

Lucy H. Purvis was born in Washington on November 5, 1897. She was in Tacoma before her marriage to Edward Arriola about 1924. The couple had a home in Alameda until settling in Santa Cruz, CA. She died there on June 27, 1979. Her works are rare.

California Coast

oil on canvas, 16" x 20"

Cyril Ralph Baker was born in North Attleboro, Massachusetts on Nov. 29, 1895. He settled in Glendale, California about 1925. During the Depression he had a sign painting shop and painted backdrops for the movie studios. In his leisure he painted desert landscapes and coastal scenes of southern California. He died in Riverside, California on July 29, 1986. Exhibited: Webb Gallery (Los Angeles), 1938.

Coast at Laguna

oil on board, 20" x 24"

Clifford Park Baldwin was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on February 14, 1889. By 1926 he had settled in southern California. While living in Montrose and Carlsbad, he was a pupil of Jean Mannheim, Paul Lauritz, and George Demont Otis. While on the staff of the Southwest Museum from 1933-41, he illustrated the books Gypsum Cave and Navajo Weaving. Baldwin died in Oceanside, California on July 3, 1961. Member: Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles; Carlsbad-Oceanside Art Club. Works held: Southwest Museum (Los Angeles).

Coast at Laguna, 1889

oil on canvas, 10" x 14"

Helen E. Coan was born in Byron, New York on December 20, 1859. She grew up in Michigan. She studied with Frederick Freer and William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League in New York City and later with Arthur Wesley Dow. After settling in Los Angeles in 1884, she taught at the Art Students League and in 1910 opened an art school in the Young Women's Christian Ass'n. She lived in Los Angeles except for brief periods in Seattle (1891) and San Francisco (1904-05). Working in oil and watercolor, her subjects include floral and fruit still lifes, Chinese and Mexican genre, crumbling missions and adobes, and other romantic depictions of the California scene. Due to arthritis, she stopped painting in 1926. A spinster, Coan died in Los Angeles on October 14, 1938. Member: Los Angeles Art Ass'n; California Art Club. Exhibited: California State Fair, 1889-1900; World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago), 1893; Society of Fine Arts (Los Angeles), 1895; Kanst Gallery (Los Angeles), 1908; Alaska-Yukon Exposition (Seattle), 1909 (medal); California Pacific Exposition (San Diego), 1915 (medal); Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles, 1920. Works held: Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History (Wolfskill Adobe); Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington, DC (Capistrano Mission).

Coast at La Jolla

oil on board, 12" x 24"

Chester (“Chet”) Ellis Berg was born in Ohio on November 16, 1895. He spent his youth around the gold and silver mines of Nevada and Mexico where he was a truck driver. He appears to have moved to San Diego about 1930 and settled in El Cajon. For over 20 years he had a studio in the Spanish Village in Balboa Park. He died there on February 9, 1973. His work includes landscapes of the desert around his home as well as coastal scenes. He signed his work with only his last name, “Berg.” Member: Desert Art Center; La Jolla Art Ass'n

California Coast

oil on board, 11" x 14"

Adolph Berson was born in San Francisco, California on May 14, 1879 of French descent. He began his art studies locally at the Institute of Art. In 1904 he sailed for Paris for further study under Lefebvre and Robert-Fleury at Académie Julian. For the next 22 years he remained in Paris where his works were highly praised by the local press. An invitation to exhibit at the Carnegie Institute brought recognition in the United States. Returning to San Francisco in 1926, he established a studio. Berson stopped painting in the early 1940s and remained a recluse in his native city until his death on November 2, 1971. His luminous, sunbathed landscapes of California include coastals, missions, adobes, and other landmarks; he also produced still lifes of fruit and flowers. Exhibited: Royal Scottish Academy; Leipzig International Exposition; Artistes Français, 1907-24; Paris Salon, 1909, 1910 (gold medal), 1911; Carnegie Institute, 1911, 1929; San Francisco Art Ass'n, 1916; Rabjohn & Morcom (San Francisco), 1920.

Monterey Trawlers, 1934

oil on canvas, 10" x 12"

Frances Brooks was born in San Francisco, California on January 4, 1900. At age 15 she began her art studies with Armin Hansen in Monterey. After several years with Hansen, she continued in Munich for four years at the Akadémie der Bildenden Künste. She was active in her native city in the 1920s and 1930s, and while there married the poet Constant Zarian. The subject of her drawings, oils, and watercolors often chronicle life on the Monterey Peninsula during the Depression, such as migrant workers, dock workers, and net repairmen on Cannery Row. She died while vacationing in Amsterdam on November 2, 1963. Exhibited: San Francisco Art Ass'n, 1925-27; Turin, 1927; EastWest Gallery (San Francisco), 1929 (solo); San Francisco Museum of Art, 1935. Works held: Oakland Museum.

Eternal Pacific

oil on board, 16” x 20”

Paul A. Grimm was born of German parents in King Williams Town, South Africa on January 11, 1891. When brought to the United States at age seven, he already showed promise as an artist. At 18 he won a scholarship in Rochester, New York for art study at the Düsseldorf Royal Academy. After many years at that prestigious school, he moved to Hollywood in 1919 and began his art career painting backdrops for the movie studios. Leaving the movie capital, Grimm settled in Palm Springs in 1932 and remained a resident there for the rest of his life. He maintained a small studio-gallery in downtown Palm Springs at 428 N. Palm Canyon Road where such notables as President Dwight D. Eisenhower often visited and shared confidences. Eisenhower once wrote, “I profited from the experience of seeing how a real artist creates the effects he wants.” Although Grimm painted scenes of the High Sierra (where he often could be found in summers), missions, and Indian portraits, his fame lies as a painter of the southern California desert and its many moods. One reviewer once wrote, “His canvases of Mt San Jacinto, which for their sheer magnificence and power of conception and execution, rank as probably the finest work ever done on the subject.” Grimm died in Palm Springs on December 30, 1974. Exhibited: San Diego Exposition, 1935. Works held: Nevada Museum (Reno); Bank of America (Palm Springs); Palm Springs Post Office; Irvine (CA) Museum.

California Coast

oil on canvas, 12” x 24”

Nels Hagerup was born in Christiania, Norway in 1864 into a family that included the composer Edward Hagerup Grieg. He studied at the Christiania Art School, Royal Academy in Berlin, and in Copenhagen with Carl Locher. After sailing to the West Coast as a merchant seaman in 1882, he moved to Portland, Oregon. There he was an instructor of drawing at the Bishop Scott Academy (now called Hill Academy) and was a founder of the Portland Art Ass’n. About 1892 he settled in San Francisco where he remained. He worked there as a stevedore on the waterfront and later established a home and studio in the Sunset District at 1224 46th Avenue within walking distance of the ocean. Hagerup painted nearly 6,000 oils of sand dunes, ships and marine scenes. One of his more important works is the 16’ x 18’ mural in the Assembly Room of the San Francisco Merchants’ Exchange Building. Due to alcoholism some of his paintings are uneven in quality; however, in his more lucid moments, he was a master of atmospheric seascapes. He died of a heart attack in his studio on March 13, 1922. Exhibited: Lewis & Clark Expo (Portland), 1905 (gold medal); Alaska-Yukon Expo (Seattle), 1909 (gold medal); California Historical Society, 1963 (retrospective). Works held: California Historical Society; San Bruno (CA) Public Library.

California Coast, 1920

oil on board, 9” x 13”

Rudolph Halbe was born in Poland on April 10, 1881. He studied art in Germany before immigrating to California in 1919. After establishing a jewelry store in Oakland at 13th and Washington streets and a home in nearby Piedmont, he was a successful businessman who painted in his leisure. A world traveler, he and his wife Erna (a noted dancer who performed ethnic dances at the Golden Gate International Exposition) traveled all over the globe. While he painted, she studied native dance. Halbe was also a skilled fencer as well as a painter. His fine art includes landscapes and coastals done with a heavy impasto and colorful palette. Halbe died in Emeryville, CA on September 4, 1967. Exhibited: Santa Cruz Art League, 1929.

California Coast

oil on board, 13" x 16"

Arthur Merton Hazard was born in North Bridgewater, Massachusetts on October 20, 1872. He studied art with Frank Duveneck in Cincinnati and with Prinet and Henri Blanc in Paris. Most of his career was spent in Boston and, for health reasons, he moved to Los Angeles in 1923. Hazard was active in the local art scene and painted many portraits of prominent Los Angeles residents including Charles M. Russell, Douglas Fairbanks, and Jack Wilkinson Smith. As well as portraits, he also painted desert-flower studies and landscapes with poppies and lupines. While vacationing in France, he died near Paris on December 26, 1930. Member: Copley Society; California Art Club; Painters and Sculptors of Los Angeles. Exhibited: Massachusetts Mechanics' Ass’n, 1892 (medal); Kanst Gallery (Los Angeles), 1923; Ebell Club (Los Angeles), 1924; Leonard Gallery (Los Angeles), 1924; Biltmore Salon (Los Angeles), 1925-27; Cannell & Chaffin Gallery (Los Angeles), 1925. Works held: California Historical Society; Amon Carter Museum (Fort Worth, Texas); Nevada Museum (Reno); National Museum of American Art (Washington, DC); Boston State House; Baltimore Court House; Red Cross Museum (Washington, DC); Houses of Parliament (Canada).

California Coast

oil on board, 8” x 10”

Edith H. Hopkins was born in Nebraska on February 20, 1877. She lived on a fruit farm in Spokane, Washington in 1910-20. By 1930 she had settled in Los Angeles. She died in Monterey, California on December 19, 1962.

California Coast

watercolor, 14” x 19”

John Joseph Ivey was born in England in 1842. After immigrating to Los Angeles in 1887, he was a professor of art at the University of Southern California. While at that school, he authored a text book entitled, A Plain Guide to Landscape Painting and Sketching From Nature in Watercolor (published by Fowler and Colwell, Los Angeles, 1891). A popular lecturer, he was a speaker at art organizations in San Jose, Pacific Grove (CA), Portland and Seattle. Ivey painted watercolors of the Golden Gate, Donner Lake, and other landmarks of California, Oregon, and Washington. Many of his pictures were sent to the East Coast and England where he had a ready market for them. During the 1890s he was a resident of San Francisco at 3276 18th Street with a studio at 131 Post. During 1902-07 he was active on the Monterey Peninsula where he was head of the art department of the Pacific Grove Chautauqua Assembly. While there, he maintained a studio in the El Carmelo Hotel. Ivey’s last address was 602 Lumber Exchange in Seattle where he died on May 23, 1910. He is buried in Lakeview Cemetery there.

California Coast

oil on board, 12” x 16”

Hannah Tempest was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 7, 1854. She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Spring Garden Institute, School of Industrial Art, with Robert-Fleury and Constant in Paris, and Tackouchi Seiho in Kyoto, Japan. In 1872 she married industrialist, John Jenkins; the marriage ended with his early death. She settled in Claremont, California in 1905 and joined the faculty at Pomona College. Locally, she was a popular lecturer, writer, and the founder of the Rembrandt Club. During her lifetime she made 44 ocean voyages to Europe and the Orient which resulted in many oils and watercolors. Upon her death on September 27, 1927, she bequeathed her art collection to Claremont College and provided for a scholarship endowment. Member: Laguna Beach Art Ass’n; California Art Club; Women Painters of the West. Exhibited: Paris Salon, 1889; World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago), 1893; Alaska-Yukon Exposition (Seattle), 1909 (award); California Art Club, 1917-25; La Fonda Hotel (Santa Fe), 1925 (solo). Works held: Pomona College.

California Coast

oil on board, 12” x 16”

Hannah Tempest was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 7, 1854. She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Spring Garden Institute, School of Industrial Art, with Robert-Fleury and Constant in Paris, and Tackouchi Seiho in Kyoto, Japan. In 1872 she married industrialist, John Jenkins; the marriage ended with his early death. She settled in Claremont, California in 1905 and joined the faculty at Pomona College. Locally, she was a popular lecturer, writer, and the founder of the Rembrandt Club. During her lifetime she made 44 ocean voyages to Europe and the Orient which resulted in many oils and watercolors. Upon her death on September 27, 1927, she bequeathed her art collection to Claremont College and provided for a scholarship endowment. Member: Laguna Beach Art Ass’n; California Art Club; Women Painters of the West. Exhibited: Paris Salon, 1889; World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago), 1893; Alaska-Yukon Exposition (Seattle), 1909 (award); California Art Club, 1917-25; La Fonda Hotel (Santa Fe), 1925 (solo). Works held: Pomona College.

California Coast

oil on canvas, 10” x 18”

This painting of the California coast is signed, “Krolow.” It appears to be from about the 1910 to 1920 period. This is the only painting by this artist that I have run across in my 41 years of pursuing California art. He or she was probably a visitor and only on the West Coast briefly.

California Coast

oil on board, 11” x 14”

Edward Marion Langley was born in London, England on March 27, 1870. He was abandoned by his parents in Australia when quite young. Making his way to Canada, he traveled alone by canoe down to the Gulf of Mexico. In Chicago he worked with William Selig in developing the motion picture camera and became a United States citizen in 1904. Before that he had played trumpet in the Illinois State Guard for many years. Sometime before 1917 he came to Hollywood, California with Selig where they produced the pioneer epic, “The Spoilers.” A few years later Langley became art director for the Fairbanks Studio on such films as “Thief of Bagdad,” “Three Musketeers,” and “Mark of Zorro.” From 1921 until 1934 the Langley home in Los Angeles was a gathering place for artists and the film colony. When not busy with the movies, he was active in the local art scene. As a lecturer at local women’s clubs, he used his paintings and special lighting effects to show the moods of the desert. Langley was painting in Japan when war erupted and was a prisoner there until 1943. Returning to California, he lived in Salinas, Laguna, and La Jolla where he taught painting classes. He died in Los Angeles on May 11, 1949. Langley is best known for his depictions of the southern California deserts. Exhibited: Ebell Club (Los Angeles), 1920s; Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles, 1926; Mission Inn (Riverside), 1927; Bullocks (Los Angeles), 1929 (solo). Works held: Desert Hot Springs (CA) Museum; Nevada Museum (Reno).

California Coast

oil on board, 6” x 10”

Bertha Elizabeth Stringer was born in San Francisco, CA on December 6, 1869. She was the socialite-daughter of a wealthy storage company owner who encouraged her pursuit of art. Following graduation from University of California at Berkeley, she studied in the studio of William Keith, at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute under Arthur Mathews, Raymond Yelland, and Amédée Joullin, and briefly in New York and Paris. At age 14 she was exhibiting locally. In 1894 she married Eugene Lee and maintained a studio in her home at 2744 Steiner Street where she gave teas and made gifts of her paintings to friends. Mrs. Lee was a prolific painter of impressionist and tonal scenes of the Monterey Peninsula and the San Francisco Bay. A lifelong resident of San Francisco, she died on March 19, 1937. Exhibited: Mechanics’ Institute (San Francisco), 1887-95; California State Fair, 1889-1902 (prizes); World’s Columbian Expo (Chicago), 1893 (prize); San Francisco Art Ass’n, 1895-1913; Sketch Club, 1895-1908; Starr King Fraternity, 1905; Del Monte Art Gallery (Monterey), 1907-12; Alaska-Yukon Expo (Seattle), 1909 (bronze medal); Sorosis Club, 1913; Sequoia Club, 1914; Golden Gate Park Museum, 1915; Richelieu Gallery (San Francisco), 1922 (solo). Works held: St Mary’s College (Moraga); Oakland Museum; De Young Museum.

Trees Along Coast

oil on board, 10” x 12”

Constance Lillian Jenkins was born in Melbourne, Australia of Scottish parents on June 29, 1883. At seventeen she began studying art in her native city at the National Gallery School where she met artist Spencer Macky. Their courtship continued in Paris where both were on traveling scholarships. Returning to Melbourne in 1912, she gave her first solo exhibition and in that year sailed to California to join her fiancé. They were married in Berkeley upon her arrival. She began teaching with her husband at the California School of Fine Arts in 1917 and was associated with that school for most of her life. Mrs. Macky died in San Francisco on November 17, 1961. Exhibited: Melbourne, 1907 (gold & silver medals); Paris Salon, 1909; San Francisco Art Ass’n and San Francisco Women Artists from 1913; San Francisco Sketch Club, 1913; California Artists, Golden Gate Park Museum, 1915; Panama Pacific International Exposition, 1915; Oakland Art Gallery Inaugural, 1916; Oakland Art League, 1928; California State Fair, 1929 (first prize); San Francisco Museum of Art Inaugural, 1935; Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939. Works held: California Palace of Legion of Honor; Oakland Museum; Mills College (Oakland); National Gallery (Milbourne); San Francisco Art Institute

California Coast

oil on board, 8” x 10”

Thomas T. Mercer was born in Canada on April 25, 1884. By 1920 he had moved to Los Angeles. An Impressionist, his rare works include coastal scenes and landscapes. He died in Riverside, California on July 26, 1971.

Coastal

oil on board, 7” x 10”

Ralph Davison Miller was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on September 7, 1858. He lived in Kansas City for several years and specialized in still lifes during his early career. Except for criticism and pointers on improving his technique from George C. Bingham, he remained a self-taught painter. Miller lived in New Mexico in the 1880s and settled in Los Angeles in 1893. He remained a resident of Los Angeles except for a period in the mid-1920s when he lived on the Monterey Peninsula. Traveling the California coast as far north as Mendocino, he painted coastals and landscapes, and made many painting excursions into the mountains and deserts of Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. Miller died in Los Angeles on December 14, 1945. Member: Carmel Art Ass’n. Exhibited: Steckel Gallery (Los Angeles), 1910; Blanchard Gallery (Los Angeles), 1911; Wilshire Gallery (Los Angeles), 1927. Works held: Santa Fe Railway; California Historical Society; Santa Barbara Historical Society.

Coastal

pastel, 9” x 12”

Raymond Nott was born in Kirksville, Missouri in 1888. After his parents separated, Raymond’s mother operated a chain of variety stores in the Black Hills where he was raised. Early in life he attended a military school and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. He later was associated with the Roycroft Studios in New York where his mother ran a weaving school. After joining the Navy at the outbreak of World War One, he was sent to San Diego, California. Upon discharge, he settled in Los Angeles. His paintings were handled there by the Bernay Gallery. Working in pastel and oil, he produced mountain landscapes á la Edgar Payne. Nott continued producing art works until his death in Los Angeles on December 6, 1948. Member: Sierra Club; Hollywood Athletic Club. Exhibited: Bernay’s (Los Angeles); Hollywood Athletic Club, 1920s.

California Coast

oil on board, 10” x 14”

Adele C. Phelps was born in Lockport, New York on October 15, 1866. She moved to southern California in 1921 and lived in both Laguna Beach and Long Beach. Her work includes landscapes of the Mojave Desert and the Sierra. A spinster, she died in Los Angeles on September 13, 1945.

Mendocino Coast, 1940

oil on canvas, 20" x 25"

Horatio Nelson Poole, an etcher, painter, muralist, and illustrator, was born on January 16, 1884 in Haddonfield, New Jersey. At age ten he moved with his family to Philadelphia where he studied at the School of Industrial Art and for six years at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under Thomas Anshutz. In 1914 he moved to Hawaii where he supported himself with newspaper illustrations and bookplates. Leaving Hawaii in 1921, he settled in San Francisco and became active with the California Society of Etchers, serving as its president for three years. Maintaining a studio at 712 Montgomery Street, he also taught at the California School of Fine Arts and at University of California at Berkeley for many years. During the 1930s Poole completed several commissions for the Public Works Administration including a 20 foot mural in San Francisco's Roosevelt Junior High School. He was an active, highly respected artist and teacher in San Francisco until his death on July 4, 1949. Member: California Society of Etchers; San Francisco Art Ass'n; Chicago Society of Etchers; California Bookplate Society. Exhibited: Hawaiian Society of Artists, 1917; San Francisco Art Ass'n, 1921-49 (awards); California Society of Etchers, 1926 (first prize); Galerie Beaux Arts (San Francisco), 1929; San Francisco Museum of Art Inaugural, 1935; Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939. Works held: San Francisco Museum of Art; De Young Museum; Mills College (Oakland); Shasta State Historical Museum; Orange County (CA) Museum.

California Coast, 1931

oil on board, 9” x 17”

Hugo A. Possner was born in Prussia in 1859. He immigrated to the United States in 1870. By 1880 he was painting murals in bars in New Haven, Connecticut. For 25 years he taught art in Provincetown, Rhode Island while active in art movements in Boston and painting portraits in New Haven, Hartford, and Waterbury. In 1912 he settled in Los Angeles and advertised as a portrait painter and commercial artist until 1932. It is believed that he then returned to his native land and died in 1933. Exhibited: Daniell Gallery (Los Angeles), 1911, 1915. Works held: Orange County (CA) Museum

California Coast

oil on canvas, 10” x 12”

Teresa Sylvia Razalle, a sculptor and painter, was born in Los Angeles, California on Aug. 8, 1888. “Tess” was the daughter of artist Emma Razalle. While a resident of Pasadena in 1909-32, she had a studio in the Blanchard Building. She later married a man named Carter and lived in Thousand Oaks, California until her death on March 15, 1972. Exhibited: Artists Fiesta (Los Angeles), 1931; Santa Monica Women’s Club, 1946.

Desert

oil on board, 15" x 20"

Andrew J. Ashurst was born in Arkansas on June 7, 1883. He was resident of Riverside, California in 1910 and Altadena, California by 1940. He died there on August 4, 1960. His rare works include landscapes of the High Sierra.

Palm Springs Desert

oil on canvas, 16" x 20"

Clifford Park Baldwin was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on February 14, 1889. By 1926 he had settled in southern California. While living in Montrose and Carlsbad, he was a pupil of Jean Mannheim, Paul Lauritz, and George Demont Otis. While on the staff of the Southwest Museum from 1933-41, he illustrated the books Gypsum Cave and Navajo Weaving. Baldwin died in Oceanside, California on July 3, 1961. Member: Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles; Carlsbad-Oceanside Art Club. Works held: Southwest Museum (Los Angeles).

Brooding Desert

oil on canvas, 10" x 14"

George Kennedy Brandriff was born in Millville, New Jersey on February 13, 1890. After moving to Orange, California in 1913, he worked as a piano salesman. Shortly after his arrival he enrolled at the University of Southern California College of Dentistry and in 1918 opened a dental office in Hemet, California.

Without the benefit of formal training, he had been painting all his life. He later had a few art lessons from Anna Hills, Carl Oscar Borg, Jack Wilkinson Smith, and in 1928 abandoned dentistry to devote full-time to art.

After building a studio-home in Laguna Beach, Brandriff taught painting (Orrin White was one of his pupils) and served as president of the local art association. His subject matter included beach scenes, marines, mountain landscapes, still lifes, and figures. Many of his paintings were of the sea and fishermen around the Newport Beach area.

Stricken with cancer, his short career ended with his suicide on August 14, 1936 in Laguna Beach.

Member: American Artists Professional League; California Art Club; Laguna Beach Art Ass'n (pres. 1934); Foundation of Western Art. Exhibited: Los Angeles County Fair, 1927; Southby Salon (LA), 1927; Painters of the West (LA), 1928, 1929 (silver medal); Exposition Bldg (Los Angeles), 1928; Kanst Gallery (Los Angeles), 1929; Biltmore Salon (Los Angeles), 1929, 1930, 1933, 1936; California State Fair, 1930 (second prize); Pasadena Art Institute, 1930, 1933, 1934; University of Southern California, 1933; Laguna Museum, 1989 (retrospective). Works held: Orange County (CA) Museum; Phoenix Municipal Collection; USC; Irvine (CA) Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Murals: Mount Vernon Jr. High School (Los Angeles); Jonathan Club (Los Angeles); Inglewood (CA) High School; Polytechnic High School (Venice, CA).

Desert Landscape

oil on board, 20" x 24"

Ada Belle Champlin was born in St Louis, Missouri on December 25, 1875. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Students League in New York City, and the Cape Cod School of Art under Hawthorne. After several years in Chicago she moved to southern California in 1910. From San Diego she settled in Pasadena in 1916. She also had a second home in Carmel where she painted and helped found the local art association in 1927. A spinster, Champlin died in Pasadena on December 16, 1950. Member: California Art Club; Laguna Beach Art Ass'n; Carmel Art Ass'n; Pasadena Art Ass'n. Exhibited: San Francisco Art Ass'n, 1916; Pasadena Art Institute, 1928. Works held: Montclair (NJ) Art Museum.

Desert in Bloom

oil on Board, 16" x 20"

Harvey B. Coleman was born in New York on January 27, 1884. He was a self-taught landscape painter who was a resident of Chicago before moving to Los Angeles at the turn of the century. He exhibited there and worked as a photoengraver for local newspapers until the 1930s. He died in Phoenix, Arizona on September 30, 1959. Exhibited: California State Fair, 1930.
 

Colorful Desert

oil on canvas, 16" x 20"

Grace Trimble was born in Denver, Colorado on December 19, 1876. She began painting at age sixteen and remained self-taught. She married Edgar Howell in 1897. Moving to southern California in 1927, she settled in La Mesa in San Diego County. In her leisure she made painting forays into the nearby deserts and along the California coast. Mrs. Howell died in San Diego on November 10, 1966. Exhibited: La Jolla Art Fairs.

Desert in Bloom

watercolor, 6" x 7"

Ida Angell Hylton was born in Utah on February 12, 1898. By 1940 she had moved to southern California. Her rare works include desert landscapes. She died in Los Angeles on May 8, 1964.

Desert Landscape

oil on canvas, 8" x 10"

Richard Kruger (né Alfred Richard Young) was born in Zitteau, Germany in 1880 of American parents. He was trained in Heidelberg to be a physician. Opting instead for an art career, he studied with Richard Tuettner in Germany and with Schrum in Dresden. An adventuresome spirit led him to New York at age 20. Shortly after arriving he headed west on foot and sketched the deserts along the way. Arriving in Los Angeles in 1906, he established a studio and school in the Majestic Building. In 1918 he moved to San Francisco into an atelier on Stockton Street where he not only painted but made expensive chests and metalwares. He was also in demand as an interior decorator and house renovator. His paintings have a romantic, old world quality to them. Often working at sunrise or sunset, his subjects include the desert, marines, coastals, landscapes, the Golden Gate and scenes around the San Francisco Bay area. After spending one year in Germany and France, Kruger returned to California in 1928; his trail is lost after that time. Exhibited: Paris; Munich; Vienna; New York City; Southern California Artists, Chicago, 1909. Works held: Santa Fe Railway (Grand Canyon).

Desert

watercolor, 4" x 5"

Edward Marion Langley was born in London, England on March 27, 1870. He was abandoned by his parents in Australia when quite young. Making his way to Canada, he traveled alone by canoe down to the Gulf of Mexico. In Chicago he worked with William Selig in developing the motion picture camera and became a United States citizen in 1904. Before that he had played trumpet in the Illinois State Guard for many years. Sometime before 1917 he came to Hollywood, California with Selig where they produced the pioneer epic, "The Spoilers." A few years later Langley became art director for the Fairbanks Studio on such films as "Thief of Bagdad," "Three Musketeers," and "Mark of Zorro." From 1921 until 1934 the Langley home in Los Angeles was a gathering place for artists and the film colony. When not busy with the movies, he was active in the local art scene. As a lecturer at local women's clubs, he used his paintings and special lighting effects to show the moods of the desert. Langley was painting in Japan when war erupted and was a prisoner there until 1943. Returning to California, he lived in Salinas, Laguna, and La Jolla where he taught painting classes. He died in Los Angeles on May 11, 1949. Langley is best known for his depictions of the southern California deserts. Exhibited: Ebell Club (Los Angeles), 1920s; Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles, 1926; Mission Inn (Riverside), 1927; Bullocks (Los Angeles), 1929 (solo). Works held: Desert Hot Springs (CA) Museum; Nevada Museum (Reno).

High Desert

oil on canvas, 20" x 24"

Eva Rose Griffin was born in Columbia, South America in 1873. By 1889 she was a resident of Pasadena and by 1910 was teaching in San Francisco at the Immaculate Conception Academy. By the 1920s she had married Albert S. Lloyd and had returned Los Angeles where taught at Manual Arts High School until her husband’s death in 1948. She is believed to have returned to South America at that time. Member: Los Angeles Art Ass'n. Exhibited: California State Fair, 1889; Hollywood Public Library, 1931.

Desert in Bloom

oil on board, 12" x 16"

Ailene Bixler McLaughlin was born in Colorado on November 17, 1889. She settled in Los Angeles in 1921. For 29 years she taught at Fairfax High School. She died in Los Angeles on April 4, 1975.

Lower Desert

oil on board, 12" x 16"

Ivan George McMichael was born in Oklahoma on February 24, 1900. By the 1930s he had settled in Long Beach. He was a draftsman and for many years taught in the Artesia school district. He worked in oil, pen-and-ink, and charcoal. He died in Barstow, California on September 19, 1986. Member: Spectrum Club; Long Beach Art Association.

Desert Landscape

oil on board, 18" x 24"

James Arthur Merriam was born in Chatham, Ontario, Canada on March 18, 1880. He studied art with Francis Petrus Paulis in Detroit. He worked there as a commercial artist before settling in Los Angeles in 1920. After establishing a studio, he made painting forays into the desert near Palm Springs, the redwoods, the high Sierra, Monterey, Yosemite, and Arizona. Merriam died in Los Angeles on September 8, 1951. He was the father of artist Eleanor Merriam Lukits.

Road to Palm Springs

oil on board, 18" x 24"

James Arthur Merriam was born in Chatham, Ontario, Canada on March 18, 1880. He studied art with Francis Petrus Paulis in Detroit. He worked there as a commercial artist before settling in Los Angeles in 1920. After establishing a studio, he made painting forays into the desert near Palm Springs, the redwoods, the high Sierra, Monterey, Yosemite, and Arizona. Merriam died in Los Angeles on September 8, 1951. He was the father of artist Eleanor Merriam Lukits.

Desert Landscape

oil on board, 10" x 12"

Biography unavailable

Desert Landscape

oil on board, 18" x 24"

Frederick Doyle Penney was born in Fullerton, Nebraska on January 10, 1900. After the University of Nebraska, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and Art Students League in New York City. Settling in Los Angeles in 1924, he continued at Chouinard Art School under Hinkle, Chamberlin, and Pruett Carter. During the 1930s he was active in the Los Angeles art scene while operating a design center. At the onset of World War Two he moved to Chicago to work in his father's factory and continued to paint in that area until his return to California in 1957. His last 30 years were spent in the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs. He died there on February 2, 1988. Penney specialized in desert landscapes in oil and watercolor. A Chicago art critic said of his work, "He slides the seasons of the year through his palette like strands of colored silk." Member: Desert Art Center (Palm Springs); Laguna Beach Art Ass'n; California Watercolor Society; Shadow Mountain Palette Club. Exhibited: California Art Club, 1930-33; California Watercolor Society, 1930-35; California Statewide (Santa Cruz), 1931; Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939; Society for Sanity in Art, 1940, 1942.

Desert

watercolor, 7" x 11"

William E. Reiffel was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on January 10, 1864. “Willy” was the brother of artist Charles Reiffel and a long-time resident of Los Angeles. He died there on February 14, 1945. His rare paintings include desert landscapes.

Desert Landscape

oil on board, 16" x 19"

Henry Leopold Richter was born in Plumenau, Austria on October 22, 1870. He immigrated to the United States in 1887 and settled in Chicago. He began painting without the aid of instruction and, upon securing employment with a commercial art company, enrolled at the Art Institute and studied privately with E. A. Burbank. After establishing a studio there, he began exhibiting at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1904. His work was favorably received by the local press and in 1911 he was asked to teach in Gunnison, Colorado at Western State Teachers College. During his eight years at that school, he took a leave of absence for further study at the Royal Academy of Munich with Professor Knirr. Richter taught at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa in 1919 and the following year moved to Long Beach, California. He later established a studio in Laguna Beach where he gave lessons and became active in the local art scene. Upon retirement in 1939, he made his final move to Rolling Hills, California where he continued painting until his death on March 11, 1960. His oeuvre includes European scenes, California landscapes, and desert scenes in oil and watercolor. Exhibited: Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles, 1924-26; Los Angeles County Fair, 1925; California Art Club, 1925; California Watercolor Society, 1925-43; Palos Verdes Art Ass'n; Long Beach Art Ass'n; California State Fairs (awards); Pacific Southwest Exposition (Long Beach), 1928 (silver medal); Linder Gallery (Long Beach), 1931, 1938; Spectrum Club (Long Beach), 1932; International Aeronautical Show (Los Angeles), 1937 (bronze medal); Webb Gallery (Los Angeles), 1938; Laguna Beach Art Ass'n, 1939; Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939; San Pedro Art Ass'n, 1953. Works held: First Methodist Church (Long Beach); Religious Science Church (Redondo Beach); Children's Museum (Colorado Springs); Western State College (Gunnison, CO).

Desert in Bloom

oil on board, 13" x 19"

Rose Pitcher Shears was born in South Dakota on January 30, 1885. While a resident of Los Angeles in the 1920s, she made painting forays into the desert near Palm Springs. She died in Orange, CA on July 8, 1955.

Desert in Bloom

oil on canvas, 20" x 24"

Herbert Morton Stoops was born in Idaho (his obit gives Utah) in 1888. Stoops was raised on a ranch in the Rocky Mountains. After graduation from Utah State College, he was active in Idaho and Utah at the turn of the century. In 1908 he moved to Oakland and for five years studied at the San Francisco Institute of Art while working as a feature artist for the San Francisco Call and Examiner. The year 1916 was spent in Chicago where he worked for the Tribune while attending the Art Institute. During World War One he served as an army artillery officer in France. His drawings of the war brought him his first national attention. Following the war he established a studio in New York City and a home in Mystic, Connecticut where he remained until his death on May 19, 1948. "Jeremy Cannon" and "Raymond Sisley" were his pseudonyms His illustrations often appeared on covers of leading magazines. Member: Salmagundi Club; Society of Illustrators; American Artists Professional League; Artists' Guild of New York. Exhibitions: National Academy of Design, 1940 (Isador Medal). Works held: Pennsylvania Historical Society; Virginia War Museum.

Desert Sand Verbenas

oil on board, 10" x 12"

Lucien C. Vannerson was born in Ochiltree, Texas on April 16, 1904. He spent four years at Texas Technological College in Lubbock and then enrolled at Carver Chiropractic College in Oklahoma City. By 1940 he had moved to southern California and settled near the Mexican border in El Centro. A self-taught artist, he often painted with Paul Grimm whose influence is seen in his desert landscapes. In the 1950s he moved to Mesa, Arizona where he remained until his death in November 1982. Exhibited: Arizona State Fair, 1956. Works held: Sangre de Cristo Arts Center Museum.

Palm Springs Desert

oil on canvas, 24" x 30"

Lynn Clark Winans was born in Michigan on April 30, 1897. While a resident of San Diego, he made painting trips to the desert near Palm Springs. He died in San Diego on July 7, 1982.

Floral Still Life

oil on board, 8" x 9"

Mary Emma Bailey was born in Maine in 1846. She was the wife of photographer A. P. Bailey and by 1880 had settled in Oakland, California. During the 1880s she was a pupil of William Keith. During 1893-1903 she continued to live in Oakland while exhibiting locally as Mary Bailey Reno. By 1903 she was the wife of George R. Child. Her last address was Boston, MA in 1942. Exhibited: Mechanics' Institute (San Francisco), 1881-93; California State Fair, 1884-96; Oakland Industrial Exposition, 1896. Works held: Orange County (CA) Museum.

Grapes

oil on canvas, 15" x 18"

Mercy P. Bausman was born in Pennsylvania in 1831. She was the wife of Jacob Bausman and a resident of Des Moines, Iowa in 1870. By 1880 she was living in Washington, DC, and by 1910 she was an inmate at the King’s Daughters Home for Incurables in Oakland, California. She died there on January 27, 1916. Her rare works include still lifes of fruit.

Still Life

oil on canvas, 14" x 18"

Arthur Beckwith was born in London, England on January 24, 1860, the son of noted watercolorist, Benjamin Beckwith. Arthur studied art with his father and at South Kensington School in London before moving to San Francisco in 1884. For the next 20 years he painted prolifically and created a large body of work, most of which went up in flames in the 1906 disaster. Despondent over his loss, he stopped painting for several years. Settling into a home across the Golden Gate in Greenbrae, he commuted by ferry daily to his studio in San Francisco in the old “Monkey Block” (now the Transamerica Pyramid). Beckwith died there on September 2, 1930. His work includes still lifes, landscapes, and marines. Member: Bohemian Club; Sequoia Club; Marin County Art Ass'n; San Francisco Art Ass'n. Works held: De Young Museum; Bohemian Club; Sequoia Club (San Francisco).

Fruit and Pitcher

watercolor, 12" x 14"

Harry Emmett Bellingham was born in San Francisco, CA on September 26, 1898. He worked for the Stecher-Traung Lithography Company and was a lifelong resident of his native city. He died there on April 3, 1951. Exhibited: Oakland Art Gallery, 1937.

Floral Still Life

oil on canvas, 20" x 27"

Geraldine Rose Birch, a portraitist, muralist, and etcher, was born in Sussex, England on November 12, 1883. She studied at the Slade School of Art in London and with Georges Desvallieres and Prinet in Paris. About 1911 she wed mining engineer Galloway Duncan. She settled in Pasadena about 1919 and soon was a prominent member of the local art colony. In 1932 a fire destroyed her studio with most of her early works. She died in Pasadena on February 8, 1972. Member: California Printmakers Society; Pasadena Art Ass'n; American Federation of Arts. Exhibited: California Art Club, 1920; Pasadena Society of Artists, 1925; Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles, 1924; California State Fair, 1926; Provincial Exposition (Victoria BC), 1932 (award); Ainslie Gallery (Pasadena); Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939; New York World's Fair, 1939. Works held: Oakland Museum; Episcopal Church (Sierra Madre); California State Library; U.S. Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs); Fletcher Aircraft (Rosemead, CA); San Juan Capistrano Mission.

Interior

watercolor, 8" x 10"

Franz Diederich Brandt was born in Pottawattamie, Iowa on October 14, 1904. Brandt was the son of a photographer and began hand tinting his father’s pictures at an early age. He grew up in Boise, Idaho and by the late 1920s he was a commercial artist in Berkeley, California. During the 1930s he moved across the bay to San Francisco where he taught art in the public schools for 27 years. He died there on May 28, 1989.

Floral Still Life

oil on board, 26" x 24"

Rubin Cornelius Brasz was born in Polk County, Wisconsin on August 16, 1886. By 1930 he had joined his brother Arnold in Los Angeles. The two artists operated an interior decorating business during the Depression. He died in Los Angeles on October 12, 1955. Rubin's paintings are very rare. 

Still Life

oil on canvas, 15" x 19"

Samuel Marsden Brookes was born on March 8, 1816 in Newington Green, Middlesex, England. After immigrating with his family to the United States in 1833, he settled near Chicago which was then only a small frontier town. There he received his first and only art instruction from two migrant artists in 1841. The years 1845 and 1846 were spent in England copying pictures at the National Gallery and Hampton Court Palace. He then worked in Chicago and Milwaukee where he was active with the American Art Union. He moved to San Francisco in 1862 and spent the last thirty years of his life there. Brookes was a founder of both the Bohemian Club and the San Francisco Art Ass'n, and served as first vice-president of the latter. While maintaining a home in the Mission District at 34 Prospect Street, he gave art lessons at his studio at 611 Clay Street which he shared with his close friend Edwin Deakin. Brookes enjoyed great financial success during his lifetime with his paintings commanding as much as $10,000 each from such patrons as E. B. Crocker and Mrs. Mark Hopkins. His early work in the Midwest was mostly portraits; however, in California he gained national renown for his still lifes of fish, flowers, fruit, and birds. Considered to be the finest American still life specialist of the 19th century, his paintings are infinitely detailed and meticulously realistic. Brookes died in San Francisco on January 21, 1892. Exhibited: Mechanics' Institute (San Francisco), 1869, 1871 (gold medal); Centennial Exposition (Philadelphia), 1876; California State Fair, 1879-90; California Midwinter International Exposition, 1894. Works held: De Young Museum; California Historical Society; Brooklyn Museum; Wisconsin Historical Society; Crocker Museum (Sacramento); Oakland Museum; Nevada Museum (Reno).

Still Life

oil on board, 18" x 24"

Millie L. Burrall was born in Virginia City, Nevada on August 27, 1865. The Burrall family settled in Napa, California in 1877. Millie grew up there and attended public schools. When quite young she began studying painting in San Francisco with Eva Withrow and others. About 1890 she settled in Oakland but commuted by ferry to San Francisco where she was active in the local art scene. In 1906 she married Charles Wood and continued to live in Oakland until her demise on February 25, 1944. A still-life specialist, she is best known for her exquisitely rendered yellow and red roses. Exhibited: Oakland Industrial Expo, 1896; Mark Hopkins Institute, 1904, 1906, 1910; San Francisco Art Ass'n, 1904-12; Starr King Fraternity (Oakland), 1905; Berkeley Art Ass'n, 1908; Calif. State Fairs. Works held: Santa Cruz City Museum.

Floral Still Life

oil on canvas, 9” x 12”

Charles Joseph Carlson was born in Gothenburg, Sweden of American parents on October 20, 1860. At age nine he came to the United States with his family and settled in San Francisco. He began drawing as a child and at age fourteen entered the School of Design where he studied under Virgil Williams. A brilliant student, at seventeen he was appointed by the school’s committee to assist Professor Williams in teaching. In 1885 he spent one year as a teacher at the Sacramento School of Design, but then returned to San Francisco to devote more time to portraiture at his studio at 523 Pine Street. Carlson died in San Francisco of syphilis at Laguna Honda Hospital on August 25, 1929. As well as portraits, his work also includes landscapes and still lifes. Exhibited: School of Design, 1876 (silver medal), 1877, 1882 (gold medals); California State Fair, 1886 (silver medal); Mechanics’ Institute Fair, 1884, 1890 (premiums); San Francisco Art Ass’n, 1889; Mark Hopkins Institute, 1900; Bohemian Club, 1902. Works held: Bohemian Club; California Historical Society.

Floral Still Life

oil on board, 18” x 24”

John Anthony Conner was born in Franklin Grove, Illinois on January 5, 1892, a descendant of Susan B. Anthony and portraitist Gilbert Stuart. Orphaned at four, he was sent to live with his grandparents in Adams, Massachusetts. His grandfather encouraged his art and fitted out a small room off his study for a studio. His first studies were of steel engravings, wodcuts, and silhouettes used to illustrate a book his grandfather was compiling of the Anthony family. The budding young artist spent several years in the art department of National Advertisers and later traveled in the interest of outdoor displays of eastern corporations. Following service in the United States Army during World War One, he married and moved to Los Angeles. He was a resident of Eagle Rock and employed in the art departments of MGM and other movie studios. Although he painted portraits, and cowboy-Indian genre, his forte was desert landscapes of the Mojave and Coachella Valley. Conner died in Hollywood, California on March 13, 1971. Exhibited: Friday Morning Club (Los Angeles), 1931, 1935 (solos); Eagle Rock Artists in 1931-32; Bullocks (Los Angeles), 1956.

Apples, 1888

oil on canvas, 10” x 12”

Sarah E. Bender was born in Washington, DC on July 10, 1852. She settled in San Francisco in 1865. When the School of Design opened in 1874, she was one of the first pupils to enroll and was greatly influenced there by Virgil Williams. Curiously, some of her 1890s paintings are signed with her married name; however, it was not until 1904 when she wed Harold DeWolfe. Probably a common law marriage. The earthquake and fire of 1906 destroyed her studio at 509 Sacramento Street taking with it many of her early works. She later had a studio on Hyde Street and a home at 3400 Laguna Street where she died on June 15, 1935. Her oils of fruit and flowers qualify her as one of California’s finest still-life specialists. Member: San Francisco Art Ass’n; San Francisco Women Artists. Exhibited: Mechanics’ Institute, 1883-95; California State Fair, 1883, 1902; California Midwinter International Exposition, 1894; San Francisco Guild of Arts & Crafts, 1904; Sorosis Club, 1913. Works held: Oakland Museum; California Historical Society.

Apples, 1905

oil on board, 6” x 8”

Anna Elizabeth Mathews was born in Iowa on January 28, 1861. She moved to San Francisco in 1888. After her marriage to Charles Doty, she studied at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute and was active in the local art scene. Following the disaster of 1906, she moved down the peninsula to Menlo Park into a home on Woodside Road where she remained until her demise on November 27, 1938. A still life specialist, her works are rare. Member: San Francisco Art Ass’n.

Floral Still Life

oil on canvas, 20” x 24”

Darwin William Duncan was born in St James, Minnesota on July 28, 1905. He moved to California with his family as a child of five. He studied landscape painting with Edgar Payne and Sam Hyde Harris, and figure painting with Christian von Schneidau. For 32 years he was a draftsman for the Richfield Oil Company. For 16 years he taught painting classes at Orange Coast College and lectured widely in the Southwest, Hawaii, Canada, and Mexico. He made his home in Ramona, CA until his death on July 19, 2002. A plein air painter, his work includes landscapes of Orange County, the High Sierra, and the desert near his home. Member: Spectrum Club (Long Beach); Desert Art Ass’n; Laguna Beach Art Ass’n; Southland Art Ass’n. Works held: Baldwin Manor (Maui, Hawaii); Huntington Beach (CA) Civic Center; Sherman Foundation Library (Corona del Mar).

Floral Still Life

oil on canvas, 16” x 20”

Darwin William Duncan was born in St James, Minnesota on July 28, 1905. He moved to California with his family as a child of five. He studied landscape painting with Edgar Payne and Sam Hyde Harris, and figure painting with Christian von Schneidau. For 32 years he was a draftsman for the Richfield Oil Company. For 16 years he taught painting classes at Orange Coast College and lectured widely in the Southwest, Hawaii, Canada, and Mexico. He made his home in Ramona, CA until his death on July 19, 2002. A plein air painter, his work includes landscapes of Orange County, the High Sierra, and the desert near his home. Member: Spectrum Club (Long Beach); Desert Art Ass’n; Laguna Beach Art Ass’n; Southland Art Ass’n. Works held: Baldwin Manor (Maui, Hawaii); Huntington Beach (CA) Civic Center; Sherman Foundation Library (Corona del Mar).

Floral Still Life

oil on board, 14” x 18”

Rudolph Fredrick Folger was born in Reeding, Pennsylvania on July 25, 1865 of German parents. He was a resident of San Francisco in 1902. Upon settling in Los Angeles in 1932, he was an administrator for Southern Pacific Hospital until a few years before his death on June 13, 1951. This well-executed still life is one of his few extant paintings.

Still Life

oil on board, 16” x 20”

Victor Clyde Forsythe was born in Orange, California on August 24, 1885. He spent his youth on a ranch in the Coachella Valley. He was a pupil of Louise Garden MacLeod at the Los Angeles School of Art & Design, and in 1904 painted his first western landscape while on a train from California to New York. He further studied with Frank V. DuMond at the Art Students League while working as a staff artist for the New York World. While in New York, he became nationally famous as the creator of cartoons and comic strips such as Way Out West and Vic. During World War One he painted many war posters including the And They Thought We Couldn’t Fight. Forsythe introduced an unknown artist named Norman Rockwell to Saturday Evening Post and was a close friend of Frank Tenney Johnson. Having gained financial success, in 1920 he and Johnson moved to Alhambra, California where they shared a studio. With their paintings in demand, they established the Biltmore Art Gallery in Los Angeles. After returning to California, Forsythe immersed himself in the lore of the West and often lived in ghost towns while on painting forays. His subjects included desert scenes with prospectors and their burros as well as cowboy genre. His unique style of painting the sky and cloud formations became the identifying feature of his landscapes. Forsythe died in Pasadena on May 24, 1962. Member: Salmagundi Club; California Art Club; Allied Art Ass’n; Painters of the West. Exhibited: Painters of the West, 1927 (bronze medal); Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939 (Gold Rush). Works held: Phoenix Municipal Art Gallery

Yellow Roses

oil on board, 20” x 24”

Helen Mae Enoch Gleiforst was born in Crete, Nebraska on February 10, 1903. The Enoch family moved to Eugene, Oregon in 1917. Helen studied at the University of Oregon. In 1923 she married realtor Fred Gleiforst and settled in Los Angeles. Other than a brief period with Nicolai Fechin, she remained a self-taught artist. An Impressionist and brilliant colorist, her oeuvre includes 500 canvases of floral still lifes and landscapes. She died in Los Angeles, California on May 28, 1997. Exhibited: Ebell Society; Beverly Hills & Westwood Women’s Clubs; Clearwater Jr. High School, 1936.

Floral Still Life

oil on board, 20” x 24”

Robert M. Harris was born in Utah on December 18, 1893. By 1930 he had settled in Los Angeles. A wealthy oil producer, his hobby was painting landscapes of the rolling hills of California, floral still lifes, and views of the Arroyo Seco. He died there on September 9, 1976. Exhibited: Businessmen’s Art Club of Los Angeles, 1936-58.

Floral Still Life

oil on canvas, 15” x 18”

Robert M. Harris was born in Utah on December 18, 1893. By 1930 he had settled in Los Angeles. A wealthy oil producer, his hobby was painting landscapes of the rolling hills of California, floral still lifes, and views of the Arroyo Seco. He died there on September 9, 1976. Exhibited: Businessmen’s Art Club of Los Angeles, 1936-58.

Floral Still Life

oil on canvas, 20” x 24”

Henry Hengstler was born in Germany on May 28, 1873. He was a resident of San Diego in the 1920s. He died in Los Angeles on October 1, 1950. His work includes portraits, nudes, still lifes, and landscapes. Exhibited: San Diego Fine Arts Gallery, 1928.

Yellow Roses

oil on board, 11” x 13”

Margaret Cox Herrick was born in San Francisco, CA on June 24, 1865, the daughter of artist William F. Herrick. Margaret studied at the local School of Design under Virgil Williams, Emil Carlsen, and Arthur Mathews, as well as in the studios of William Keith, Frederick Yates, and Mary Curtis Richardson. She further studied at Art Students League in New York City and in Europe. After the earthquake of 1906, she moved across the bay to a home in Piedmont at 312 Pacific Avenue and maintained a studio in Oakland at 1302 12th Street. A spinster, Herrick died in Piedmont on June 16, 1950. Working in oil and watercolor, she produced landscapes, portraits, figure studies, and still lifes. Exhibited: Piedmont Art Gallery (Oakland), 1907; California Artists, Golden Gate Park Museum, 1915; San Francisco Art Ass’n, 1904-23; Oakland Art Gallery, 1939; Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939; Society for Sanity in Art, California Palace of Legion of Honor, 1940. Works held: Oakland YWCA (lunette); First Congregational Church, Oakland (portrait of Reverend J. K. McLean); Kansas City Convention Hall (portrait of Herbert Hoover); Veterans Home, Livermore, (portrait of Charles Lindbergh); California Historical Society.

Roses

oil on canvas, 10” x 18”

William Hubacek was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 15, 1871. He came to San Francisco by covered wagon as a child of five and began painting at age twelve. His art studies were at the Mark Hopkins Institute under Yelland, Mathews, and Joullin. His first studio was in the family home in the Mission District at 823 York Street. After continuing his art training in France, Germany, and Italy, he returned to San Francisco and taught at the Mark Hopkins. A great portion of his earlier works was lost when his studio was destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906. In 1938 he moved down the peninsula to San Bruno where he maintained a studio in his home at 241 San Luis Avenue. His many students from the surrounding area called him “The Old Master.” Hubacek died in San Bruno on June 14, 1958. A highly competent painter of realistic still lifes and landscapes, his work reflects a thorough academic training. Member: San Francisco Art Ass’n; Peninsula Art Ass’n. Exhibited: World’s Columbian Expo (Chicago), 1893; California Midwinter Int’l Expo, 1894; Mark Hopkins Inst., 1898, 1906; San Francisco Art Ass’n, 1903-04; Panama Pacific Int’l Expo, 1915; San Mateo County Fairs; California State Fairs; Golden Gate Int’l Expo, 1939; New York World’s Fair, 1939; San Bruno Public Library, 1958 (retrospective). Works held: San Bruno Public Library; California Historical Society; Oakland Museum; Orange County (CA) Museum.

Still Life

oil on board, 14” x 17”

Edward Jabes was born on February 16, 1903 in Kansas. He was a professional singer who painted in his leisure. He appears to have moved to the San Francisco Bay area at a young age. He lived in Kensington until his demise in nearby Berkeley on July 4, 1983. His work includes still lifes.

Still Life, 1894

oil on canvas, 10” x 12”

Biography unavailable

Still Life

oil on board, 16” x 20”

Ruth H. Andrews Lindsay was born in Ada, Ohio on November 23, 1888. She studied at the National Academy of Design, Art Students League in New York City, and the Royal Academy of Brussels. The wife of banker, Harry Lindsay, by the early 1920s she had settled in Pasadena into a home at 1025 Topeka and was active in the local art scene through the early 1960s. She died in Pasadena on January 26, 1982. Exhibited: California Art Club, 1923-32; Laguna Beach Art Ass’n, 1930s; Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles, 1934-35; Ebell Club (Los Angeles), 1938, 1949; Pasadena Society of Artists, 1938-45 (awards); Pasadena Arts & Crafts Club, 1941; Women Painters of the West, 1949; Pasadena Museum, 1955 (award); Friday Morning Club (Los Angeles), 1957.

Still Life

oil on Canvas, 20” x 24”

Stanton Macdonald-Wright was born in Charlottesville, Virginia on July 8, 1890. A problem child, Stanton ran away from home on a windjammer. When his father became manager of the Arcadia Hotel on the coast at Santa Monica, he moved with his family to California in 1900. His art studies were begun locally with Joseph Greenbaum. He soon hyphenated his last name with Macdonald to avoid being ask if he was related to the architect or the aviators. In 1909 he journeyed to Paris for further study at the Sorbonne, Académies Julian, Beaux Arts, and Colarossi. In Paris he and artist Morgan Russell developed an art style which they termed Synchromism in which color generates form. They co-exhibited in Paris and Munich in 1913 and New York in 1914. Upon returning to the United States in 1916, MacDonald-Wright was active on the East Coast until his return to Los Angeles in 1919. He then turned from Synchromism to a more oriental approach to art, and produced the first full-length stop-motion film ever made in full color. He was director of the Art Students League of Los Angeles from 1923-30. During the 1930s he served as regional advisor for seven states on the Works Progress Administration art program. From 1942-52 he taught oriental aesthetics, art history, and iconography at UCLA. Upon retirement, he devoted full time to painting, dividing his time between Kyoto, Japan and his home in Santa Monica. His work alternated throughout his career between pure abstractions and figural representations. Eugen Neuhaus put it succinctly in his History and Ideals of American Art, “Wright apparently attempts to correlate music with painting, as indicated in his emphasis upon strongly moving dynamic rhythms clothed in the hues of the spectrum.” A pioneer in modern art, MacDonald-Wright died in Los Angeles on August 22, 1973. Exhibited: American Modernists (Los Angeles), 1920; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1927, 1932, 1956; North Carolina Museum, 2001 (retrospective). Works held: Corcoran Gallery (Washington, DC); Art Institue of Chicago; Brooklyn Museum; Los Angeles County Museum; Metropolitan Museum; Carnegie Institute; Detroit Institute of Arts; Boston Museum; Oakland Museum; Museum of Modern Art (New York City); Walker Art Center (Minneapolis); San Diego Museum; Pasadena Art Institute; Orange County (California) Museum; Santa Monica City Hall, High School and Public Library; Whitney Museum (New York City); Thomas Edison Jr. High School (Los Angeles).

Still Life, 1946

oil on board, 22” x 26”

Arthur M. Paulus was born in Illinois on April 25, 1889. He had a florist shop in Chicago until 1930 and the next year moved to Los Angeles where he worked as both florist and artist. He later retired to San Diego, CA and died there on Jan. 17, 1967. His paintings are rare.

Still Life

oil on canvas, 20” x 24”

Biography unavailable

Still Life

oil on canvas, 16” x 18”

George Westfall Reynolds was born in Dyersville, Iowa on April 10, 1887. He established a dentist office in Minneapolis in 1911. A veteran of World War One, he often spent long periods of each year in southern California. He studied painting there at the Scripps Institute under Henry McFee and privately with Otto Schneider. He had a home in Los Angeles during the 1920s and by the late 1930s had a studio in San Diego’s Balboa Park. Reynolds died in La Jolla, California on January 31, 1966. Member: Laguna Beach Art Ass’n; California Art Club; La Jolla Art Ass’n; San Diego Men’s Art Institute. Works held: Orange County (CA) Museum.

Still Life

oil on canvas, 12” x 16”

Benjamin Willard Sears was born in Guilford, Connecticut on May 16, 1846. His father had come to California in 1852 and followed placer mining in the vicinity of Sonora. Ben and his two brothers made the trip to Sonora via Panama in 1862. He came to San Francisco in 1868 and worked as a photographer in several galleries until the early 1870s when he switched to oil painting. He spent a great deal of time in the studios of various painters where he may have learned to paint by observing the techniques of these artists. He left San Francisco in 1878 and returned to Sonora, working for a short while as a sketch artist for the United States Signal Coast Survey which took him all over northern California. While in San Francisco Sears had painted mostly nocturnes and inshore marine views, but after his return to Sonora, he concentrated on landscapes of the Sierra Nevada, Yosemite and Tuolumne County. Poor and with a wife and five children to support, Sears was often compelled to paint on what surfaces were available to him for want of canvases (i.e., door panels, pie tins, etc.) The signature on his paintings was most often the letter B overlayed with the letter S; in his later years his work became paler and bluer. He died on a sketching trip in Pacific Grove, California on November 18, 1905 and was buried in Sonora. Approximately 200 of his paintings are extant. Member: San Francisco Art Ass’n; Olympic Club. Exhibited: Newhall & Co. (San Francisco), 1877 (solo); San Francisco, 1882; Mark Hopkins Institute, 1903; Alaska-Yukon Exposition (Seattle), 1909; Society of California Pioneers, 1965. Works held: Oakland Museum; California Historical Society; Society of California Pioneers; California State Library; Tuolumne County Historical Society.

Floral Still Life

oil on canvas, 26” x 34”

John Christopher Smith was born in Ireland on May 24, 1891. He arrived in the United States about 1903. Following service in the United States Armed Forces during World War One, he studied art in New York City with Robert Henri. After a brief time in Chicago, he moved to Los Angeles in 1920. By 1926 he was exhibiting regularly at the Wilshire Galleries and the Pasadena Art Institute. Smith was a close friend of artist Franz Bischoff with whom he sketched and co-exhibited. Smith’s reputation was enhanced by association with this prestigious painter. The two artists painted together in Zion National Park in 1928 as well as in Cambria and San Pedro. During 1929 Bischoff died, the stock market crashed, the Wilshire Galleries closed, and survival became difficult for Smith. He had to earn his living as an interior decorator and even then was ill with tuberculosis. He succumbed to the disease in Los Angeles on June 12, 1943. His paintings are characterized by a clear, bright palette and bold, heavy brush strokes. As well as landscapes, his subject matter often included people in various activities such as fishermen, sun bathers, industrial scenes, etc. He also painted a few Indian portraits from a sketching trip in Arizona and New Mexico. In his portraits one can see the influence of Henri. Works held: Fleischer Museum (Scottsdale).

Roses

oil on canvas, 13” x 17”

Louisa Tomlinson was born in Spain on March 24, 1866. By 1880 she had settled in San Francisco. In 1890 she married George Ernest Bridgett and remained in San Francisco until her death on December 2, 1948. Exhibited: Mechanics’ Institute (SF), 1885 (crayon portraits).

Fruit Still Life

oil on board, 16” x 24”

Gertrude M. Zimdars was born in Prussia on July 10, 1868. The Zimdars family immigrated to the United States in 1871. After a few years in Michigan, the family moved to northern California about 1877. Gertrude studied at the School of Design and worked in San Francisco as a freelance artist for many years. A spinster, she died in Sonoma, California on October 2, 1930. Exhibited: Mechanics’ Institute (San Francisco), 1897; San Francisco Art Ass’n, 1898; California State Fair, 1901.

Distinguished Gentleman

oil on canvas, 20" x 26"

William Barr was born in Glasgow, Scotland on April 26, 1867. He began his art career as a student at the Glasgow School of Art (1895-98) followed by work at South Kensington (London) and Académie Julian in Paris (1904). He then taught at the Paisley School of Art in Scotland for 10 years. After earning a reputation in his native land, he first visited California in 1912 and after joining the throngs who came to San Francisco for the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915, decided to remain. Working from a studio in his home at 311 Lyon Street, he painted romantic and historical interpretations of California including genre scenes, figure studies, and landscapes as well as many portraits of prominent local citizens. Having studied the Old Masters, he carried their spirit into his work. Barr died in San Francisco on February 25, 1933. Exhibited: San Francisco Art Ass'n, 1918-19; Fairmont Hotel, 1930; California State Fair, 1930; City of Paris (San Francisco), 1939 (solo). Works held: San Francisco's Palace Hotel (portrait, President Hoover); California Historical Society; San Francisco Parks Commission (portrait of John McClaren); San Francisco Union League Club (portrait of John McNab); San Francisco City Hall (portrait of Thomas Boyle); City of Paisley collection.

Chinese Children

oil on canvas, 12" x 15"

Frederick Bauer was born in Germany in 1857. He appears to have been well trained in his native land.

By the 1880s he had immigrated to California and in 1886 became a United States citizen in Visalia.

Upon moving north he lived in San Francisco and Fresno until about 1928. His trail is then lost.

Bauer painted in the realistic style of the Düsseldorf School. His California subjects include the Trinity Alps, coastal scenes, Chinatown and Indian genre.

Exhibited: Fresno County Fair, 1891 (first prize); Presbyterian Fair (Fresno), 1896.

Chinatown

oil on board, 6" x 8"

Louise D. Brown was born on September 5, 1878. By the 1930s she had settled in Los Angeles. She soon was active in the local art scene and in Laguna Beach. She died in Los Angeles on May 28, 1967. Her work includes Chinatown genre, still lifes, coastals, and landscapes. Exhibited: Laguna Beach Art Association, 1945.

Lady in Wild Flowers

oil on canvas, 14" x 20"

Marion E. Drewe was born in Sydney, Australia on March 6, 1867. She began her art studies in Sydney and continued in Paris and London. Arriving in northern California in 1900, she lived in San Francisco and Oakland with interludes in Martinez (1907), Eureka (1909), and La Jolla in 1918 when she worked for the Scripps Biological Institute. After her marriage to Rufus A. Coleman in Virginia City in 1906, she became a serious painter of western subjects such as the Comstock mines, the Hoopa and Klamath tribes of Humboldt County, the Hopi of Arizona and various other Indian tribes of the Southwest. Mrs. Coleman died in Oakland, California on April 16, 1950. Exhibited: Grafton Gallery (London), 1890s; Royal Art Society (New South Wales), 1890s (President's Prize); California State Fair, 1901-02; San Francisco Art Ass'n, 1906; Piedmont Art Gallery (Oakland), 1907; California Artists, Golden Gate Park Museum, 1915; Sequoia Club (San Francisco), 1916. Works held: San Jose Historical Museum.

Seated Gentleman, 1860

oil on board, 12” x 18”

Karl Wilhelm (William) Hahn was born in Ebersbach, Saxony, Germany on January 7, 1829. At age 14 he entered the Royal Academy of Art in Dresden where he studied for five years under Julius Huebner and continued for two more years at the Düsseldorf Academy. He received gold and silver medals from the Dresden Gallery. Some of his first watercolors were purchased by the King of Saxony and placed in the National Gallery in Düsseldorf. His paintings were exhibited in Boston, New York, and San Francisco including the California Art Union of 1865. In 1869 Hahn met artist William Keith in Düsseldorf and in 1871 came with him to Boston where the two artists shared a studio. In 1872 the two artists came to San Francisco and established a studio in the Mercantile Library Building. Hahn’s sketching trips took him to the Sierra Nevada, Yosemite, Napa Valley, Russian River, and southern California. By 1876 he was a resident of the Bohemian Club and director of the San Francisco Art Ass’n. The year 1878 was spent in New York and, while there, he exhibited at the National Academy of Design and the Brooklyn Art Ass’n. Upon returning to San Francisco, he exhibited locally and received high praise from the press. Hahn married local artist Adelaide Rising in Piedmont, CA in 1882 and then left for an extended European honeymoon. They lived in London for several years and intended to return to California; however, he died unexpectedly in Dresden on June 8, 1887. Although he painted portraits and still lifes of fruit and flowers, it is his genre scenes which are his greatest legacy to California art. Exhibited: California State Fair, 1873-95; San Francisco Art Ass’n, 1873-80; Mechanics’ Institute (San Francisco), 1874-96; California Midwinter Fair, 1894; Alaska-Yukon Exposition (Seattle), 1909; Metropolitan Museum, 1939; Oakland Museum, 1976 (retrospective). Works held: California Historical Society; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Oakland Museum; De Young Museum (Sacramento Railroad Station); National Gallery (Düsseldorf); Society of California Pioneers; Crocker Museum (Sacramento); Hudson River Museum (Yonkers, NY); California Palace of the Legion of Honor; Orange County (CA) Museum; Dresden Museum.

Oil on canvas, 18” x 25” 

Lady with Sun Bonnet

oil on board, 16” x 12”

Jack Macartney was born in San Francisco, CA on March 15, 1893. He was first taught to paint by his father Henry (“Harry”) C. Macartney. After moving to southern California, he further studied with William T. McDermitt, Arthur Beaumont, Eliot O’Hara, Edgar Payne, and Sam Hyde Harris. For 30 years he was in the woodwork manufacturing business in Los Angeles while painting in his leisure. He also taught locally at the Businessmen’s Art Institute. Upon retirement, he moved to Laguna Beach in 1958 and was active in the local art scene until his death on July 31, 1976. Realistically depicted, his scenes of San Pedro harbor, the coast, and missions are from the brush of a talented painter. Member: Artists of the Southwest; Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles; Laguna Beach Art Ass’n. Works held: Orange County (CA) Museum.

Blonde Girl

Oil on Canvas, 16” x 20”

Ruth Larimer was born in Denver, Colorado on February 7, 1901, the daughter of artist Barbara Larimer. Ruth was taught to paint early in life by her mother. The family settled in Los Angeles in 1911. Following graduation from Hollywood High School, she went to UCLA and studied privately with Jean Mannheim. After her marriage to engineer Thomas Myers in 1933, she continued to be active in the local art scene until her death in an auto accident in Los Angeles on April 30, 1958. Primarily a portrait painter, her work also includes scenes of Mexico, England, the Monterey Peninsula and southern California. Her work evolved from Tonalism (1920s) to Regionalism (1930s) to Abstractions (1950s). Exhibited: Women Painters of the West, 1920s-1940s; California Art Club, 1924-31; Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles, 1928-30; California Watercolor Society, 1928-29; Artists Fiesta (Los Angeles), 1931; Hollywood Womans Club, 1931; City Hall (Los Angeles), 1931, 1939; Santa Monica, 1932; Gardena (CA) High School, 1933; Chamber of Commerce (Santa Paula), 1938; Oakland Museum, 1954. Works held: Santa Monica Athletic Club (mural).

Young Woman

oil on canvas, 28” x 36”

Albert Sheldon Pennoyer was born in Oakland, California on April 5, 1888, the son of a prosperous dry goods merchant who founded Capwell’s. The Pennoyer family moved to nearby Berkeley while Sheldon was a child. After one year at the University of California, he sailed to Paris to study architecture at Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He soon opted to become a painter instead and studied art at Académies Julian and Grand Chaumière under Ménard and Lucien Simon. At the outbreak of World War One, he left Europe and returned to his home in Berkeley. About 1919 he moved permanently to New York City but spent much time at his mother’s home in Litchfield, Connecticut. Although he maintained a studio in New York City during his last 38 years, he made many painting trips to California and had a studio shack on his brother’s property at Lake Tahoe. He was the author of This Was California (1938) and Locomotives in Our Lives (1954). Pennoyer died in an auto accident in Madrid, Spain on August 17, 1957. Working in pastel, gouache and oil, he painted coastals, portraits, landscapes, railroad subjects, and scenes from his travels in Spain, Portugal, Central America, and the United States. Member: American Federation of Arts; San Francisco Art Ass’n; American Watercolor Society; Century Club; National Arts Club; Allied Artists of America; American Artists Professional League; Oakland Art Ass’n. Exhibited: Schussler Galleries (San Francisco), 1914; Panama Pacific International Exposition, 1915; California Artists, Golden Gate Park Museum, 1915; Oakland Art Gallery, 1916; Doll & Richards Gallery (Boston), 1917 (1st solo); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1918, 1919 (solos), 1926; Macbeth Gallery (New York City), 1926; San Francisco Art Ass’n, 1919-30; Vickery, Atkins & Torrey (San Francisco), 1930; California Palace of Legion of Honor, 1958 (memorial). Works held: Oakland Museum; California Palace of Legion of Honor; Henry Ford Museum (Dearborn, Michigan); Metropolitan Museum; De Young Museum; Santa Barbara Museum; Smithsonian Institute; West Point Military Academy; California Historical Society.

Portrait of A Gentleman

oil on canvas, 24” x 30”

Frederick G. Quimby was born in Sandwich, New Hampshire in 1863. Most of his career was spent in Boston, Massachusetts. Primarily a marine painter, he was also a fine portraitist. He died in Arlington, Massachusetts in 1923. Exhibited: Boston Art Club, 1908-09; Society of Independent Artists, 1917. Works held: Boston Art Club.

Woman and Basset Hound

oil on board, 20” x 16”

Alice S. Cardall was born in Dayton, Ohio on December 17, 1883. At age 15 Alice came with her family to San Francisco where her father became co-owner of the Palms Restaurant on Market Street. While a pupil in the painting class of Gottardo Piazzoni in 1902, she met artist Francis Todhunter whom she married three years later. She then had further study at the Mark Hopkins Institute. After the earthquake of 1906, the Todhunters moved to New York City where she studied at the National Academy of Design under Robert Henri and at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Returning to California in 1913, she was a resident of San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Mill Valley. Mrs. Todhunter died in Marin General Hospital on June 16, 1969. An oil painter, her subjects include portraits, still lifes, and genre. Member: Palo Alto Art Club.

Italian Beggar, 1875

oil on board, 10” x 16”

Virgil Macey Williams was born in Dixfield, Maine on October 29, 1830. He was raised in Taunton, Massachusetts and, after studying at Brown University, began his art training in New York City under Daniel Huntington. During 1853-60 he studied in Rome with renowned New York painter William Page and became a close friend of Page after marrying his daughter, Mary. Upon returning to the United States, he had a studio in Boston until 1862 when he was commissioned to come to San Francisco to design and install an art gallery at Woodward’s Gardens. After returning to Boston in 1866, he taught drawing at Harvard University and the Boston School of Technology. Williams divorced Mary Page about 1870, married Dora Norton in 1871, and returned with his new wife to San Francisco. The San Francisco Art Ass’n hired him in 1874 as director of the newly formed School of Design, a position he held until his death 12 years later at his summer cottage at St Helena, CA on December 18, 1886. His pall bearers included artists William Keith, Thomas Hill, and Samuel Brookes. During his 12 years at the School of Design he taught many artists who later became some of the nation’s most renowned painters. Williams was charismatic and well-loved by his pupils and the local art world; Thomas Hill and Chris Jorgensen named their sons for him. Most of his subject matter was derived from his years in Italy; however, he painted a few portraits and, on rare occasions, California landscapes. Member: San Francisco Art Ass’n (cofounder); Bohemian Club (cofounder and pres. 1875-76). Exhibited: Mechanics Institute Fair, 1864, 1875, 1876; California Art Union, 1865. Works held: Crocker Museum (Sacramento); National Museum of American Art; De Young Museum; Silverado Museum (St Helena, CA); Oakland Museum; California Historical Society; Bancroft Library (UC Berkeley).

Shepherd Boy, 1865

oil on canvas, 10” x 13”

Virgil Macey Williams was born in Dixfield, Maine on October 29, 1830. He was raised in Taunton, Massachusetts and, after studying at Brown University, began his art training in New York City under Daniel Huntington. During 1853-60 he studied in Rome with renowned New York painter William Page and became a close friend of Page after marrying his daughter, Mary. Upon returning to the United States, he had a studio in Boston until 1862 when he was commissioned to come to San Francisco to design and install an art gallery at Woodward’s Gardens. After returning to Boston in 1866, he taught drawing at Harvard University and the Boston School of Technology. Williams divorced Mary Page about 1870, married Dora Norton in 1871, and returned with his new wife to San Francisco. The San Francisco Art Ass’n hired him in 1874 as director of the newly formed School of Design, a position he held until his death 12 years later at his summer cottage at St Helena, CA on December 18, 1886. His pall bearers included artists William Keith, Thomas Hill, and Samuel Brookes. During his 12 years at the School of Design he taught many artists who later became some of the nation’s most renowned painters. Williams was charismatic and well-loved by his pupils and the local art world; Thomas Hill and Chris Jorgensen named their sons for him. Most of his subject matter was derived from his years in Italy; however, he painted a few portraits and, on rare occasions, California landscapes. Member: San Francisco Art Ass’n (cofounder); Bohemian Club (cofounder and pres. 1875-76). Exhibited: Mechanics Institute Fair, 1864, 1875, 1876; California Art Union, 1865. Works held: Crocker Museum (Sacramento); National Museum of American Art; De Young Museum; Silverado Museum (St Helena, CA); Oakland Museum; California Historical Society; Bancroft Library (UC Berkeley).

Portrait of A Man

pen and ink, 7" x 7"

Frederick Yates was born in England in 1854. He abandoned a desk in a London mercantile house for art study in the Paris ateliers of Bonnat, Boulanger, and Lefebvre. Following his art training, in 1886 he moved to San Francisco where his family had settled a few years before. Locally, he became a popular portraitist and taught at the newly formed Art Students League. He made several trips back to England, and also France and Italy, for further work. On one of these trips he became acquainted with the Dowager Marchioness of Downshire who became his patroness and introduced him to London society. Yates was active in San Francisco until 1900 and then returned to England where he remained until his death in 1919. Member: Bohemian Club. Exhibited: Paris Salon; Royal Academy (London); Art Students League of San Francisco, 1886; Mark Hopkins Institute, 1897; Kilohana Art League (Hawaii), 1897; Bohemian Club, 1897, 1902, 1904, 1913; Alaska-Yukon Exposition (Seattle), 1909; California Artists, Golden Gate Park, 1915. Works held: Bohemian Club.