Catalog: Sold Items: Fine Art (179)

Biography

A painter of realistic landscapes reflecting a vanishing wilderness in America, Robert Wood (not to be confused with Robert E Wood) is reportedly one of the most mass-produced artists in the United States. His painting became so popular he was unable to meet all of the demands, and many of his works were reproduced in lithographs and mass distributed as prints, place mats, and wall murals by companies including Sears, Roebuck. He was born in Sandgate, Kent on the south coast of England near Dover, the son of W.L. Wood, a famous home and church painter who recognized and supported his son's talent. In fact, he forced his son to paint by keeping him inside to paint rather than playing with his friends. At age 12, Wood entered the South Kensington School of Art. As a youth, he came to the United States in 1910, having served in the Royal Army, and he never returned to England. He traveled extensively all over the United States, especially in the West, often in freight cars, and also painted in Mexico and Canada. His itinerant existence took him to Illinois where he worked as a farmhand, to Pensacola, Florida where he married, briefly in Ohion, Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. In 1912, he was in Los Angeles, and In the late 1920s and early 1930s, in San Antonio, Texas, where he lived and in 1928 exhibited in the "Texas Wildflower Competition." From San Antonio, he gained a national reputation for his strong colored, dramatic paintings. Some of that prestige has been credited to his asssociation with Jose Arpa, prominent Texas artist. Wood also gave art lessons, and one of his students was Porfirio Salinas. During this period, Wood sometimes signed his paintings G. Day or Trebor, which is Robert spelled backwards. In 1941 he went to California and painted numerous desert and mountain landscapes and coastal scenes. He lived in Carmel for seven years, and then moved to Woodstock, New York, but he soon returned to California, settling first in Laguna Beach, then San Diego, and finally in the High Sierras, where he and his wife built a home and studio near Bishop and lived until his death in 1979.

Biography

Charles Henry Harmon (1859-1936) was born on December 23, 1859 in Mansfield, Ohio. He moved to San Jose, California with his family in 1874 and at an early age was apprenticed to local portrait painter Louis Lussier. He later spent one year working in a local photography studio re-touching negatives. His youth was spent visiting the art galleries of San Francisco and, with no formal training, he began sketching and painting in 1883 in the beautiful Santa Clara Valley. He painted many landscapes of that area and made trips to the remotest parts of the Sierra and the Monterey Peninsula where he painted many coastal scenes. He began exhibiting in San Jose in the 1880s. By the turn of the century, his works were handled exclusively by Gump's and he was recognized as one of California's foremost painters. In 1905 he established a studio in Denver and for seven years concentrated on the rugged landscape of the Rocky Mountains. While there, the Santa Fe, Western Pacific, and Colorado Midland railroads commissioned him to paint scenes along their routes. After his time in Colorado, he returned to San Jose where he remained for the rest of his life. Harmon died there on October 14, 1936 and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. Exhibited: Mark Hopkins Institute, 1897-98; Gump's (San Francisco), 1899; Berkeley League of Fine Arts; California Artists, Golden Gate Park Museum, 1915; Stanford Art Gallery, 1923; Rosicrucian Art Gallery, 1949 and Triton Museum, 1971 (retrospectives). Works held: San Jose Civic Auditorium; Clarke Museum (Eureka); California State Library; Denver Public Library; Santa Fe Railway. Source : Edan Hughes Artists in California.

Artist Biography,

Landscape painter. Born on Aug. 26, 1865 in Stockton, CA when it was still a small frontier town. Mersfelder began drawing at an early age and in his teens moved to San Francisco where he studied for three years at the School of Design under Virgil Williams. While studying at that school, he often visited the nearby studio of William Keith who offered criticism. Mersfelder then moved to NYC where he had a studio for a few years. During his stay there, he exhibited at the first exhibition of the Society of American Artists. He also enjoyed the hospitality and criticism of George Inness and A. H. Wyant. He later exhibited in Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, and Baltimore. He won a bronze medal at the Louisiana Purchase Expo (St Louis) of 1904 and was awarded the Klio Assn prize at the annual exhibition held at the AIC where 18 of his canvases were accepted by the jury. He had a studio in Portland, OR in 1889 before returning to San Francisco in 1891. He was active in the local art scene when not out on painting forays in northern California. The year 1915 was spent in San Diego. Mersfelder lived his final years in Berkeley, CA and died there on Oct. 23, 1937. Although he made no known European trips, his works bear evidence of strong influence by the French Barbizons. Many of his landscapes of the rugged, old oaks of California compare favorably with those painted by William Keith during his late period. Exh: Calif. State Fair, 1882; Mark Hopkins Inst., 1897; Gumps (SF), 1900. In: St Francis Hotel (mural, Mt Tamalpais); Oakland Museum; CHS. CSL; BC; Ber; AAA 1907; DR.

Known as a California Impressionist influenced by Tonalism and also an early modernist painter, Karl Neuhaus was also an active lecturer and teacher. Neuhaus was born in Barmen (Wuppertal), Germany, in 1879. He apprenticed with a house painter while studying at the Royal Art School in Kassel, graduating in 1899. He proceeded to the Berlin Royal Institute for Applied Arts where he studied under Otto Eckmann, Max Koch and Carl Brunner. Neuhaus moved to San Francisco, California, in 1904 where he established a studio across a hallway from William Keith. While living in San Francisco he exhibited with the San Francisco Art Association and became a member of the Bohemian Club. After the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906 he relocated to the Monterey peninsula, in the town of Pacific Grove. There he was one of the founders of the Del Monte Art Gallery, which was the first gallery in the United States to show exclusively work by California artists. Between 1907 and 1909 he taught at the San Francisco Institute of Art, and from 1908 to 1949 he taught at the University of California, Berkeley. At the University of California, Berkeley he also served as the first chairman of the Department of Art between 1923 and 1925. During the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition Neuhaus served as Chairman of the Advisory Committee for the West and was also an exhibitor. As a California landscapist he was known for his painted scenes of Mendocino, the Sacramento Valley, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Luis Obispo. He contributed to the art community by lecturing all over the state and was also known as a writer. During his career his work was exhibited at the Oakland Museum in 1981, and the Del Monte Gallery from 1907-14. Karl Neuhaus died in Berkeley, California in 1963.

Ida Sedgwick Proper (1873 - 1957)

Rare original oil on canvas by signed lower right measuring 20 x 24 inches in good all original condition. Provenance: The Grandson of the artist.

Biography

Born in Bonaparte, Iowa, into a Baptist minister family, she attended Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas. Then at the Art Student's League in New York, she trained with William Merritt Chase, John Twachtmann, and Frank DuMond. In 1897, she began art studies in Munich and exhibited in European salons. From 1907 to 1911, she had a studio in New York. She is known for her Impressionist palette and diffused compositional elements.

Biography

James Waltham Curtis (1839-1901) was an eminent Australian colonial artist whose work lives on as a tribute to Australia’s early days of European settlement. His approach is of technical, poetic and historical interest, emphasizing man’s battle with a primeval landscape and nature, his picturesque landscapes being fine examples of the late 19th century period which preceded the Heidelberg School. Curtis was an English painter and illustrator who it is believed, came to Australia during the Gold Rush. Curtis’ work plays an important part in the preservation of Australian history and is an excellent reminder of how life was in the latter part of the 19th century.

The Three Sisters

The Sisters were formed by erosion. The soft sandstone of the Blue Mountains is easily eroded over time by wind, rain and rivers and the cliffs surrounding the Jamison Valley are being slowly broken up. [edit]Aboriginal legends The commonly told legend of the Three Sisters is that three sisters (Meehni', 'Wimlah' and Gunnedoo') lived in the Jamison Valley as members of the Katoomba tribe). They fell in love with three men from a neighbouring tribe (the Nepean tribe), but marriage was forbidden by tribal law. The brothers were not happy to accept this law and so decided to use force to capture the three sisters. A major tribal battle ensued, and the sisters were turned to stone by an elder to protect them, but he was killed in the fighting and no one else could turn them back. This legend is claimed to be an Indigenous Australian Dreamtime legend.[1] However, Dr Martin Thomas, in his work "The artificial horizon: imagining the Blue Mountains",[2] clearly shows that the "aboriginal" legend is a fabrication created by a non-Aboriginal local Katoomba, Mel Ward, presumably to add interest to a local landmark. The story originated in the late 1920s or early 1930s and is unknown prior to that date. The Aboriginal traditional owners, the Gundungurra, have a legend that includes the Sisters rock formation. They are currently[when?] developing a website which will include these traditional stories.

Biography

Fred Wagner was born in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in 1864. He received a scholarship to study art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins and in 1884 was made chief Demonstrator of Anatomy there. In 1885, Wagner left the Academy to make a painting tour of San Antonio, Texas, and then went on to Los Angeles, California, where he painted a number of landscapes and portraits. He returned to Philadelphia as an illustrator for the Philadelphia Press until 1902, and then moved to Norristown, Pennsylvania to paint full time. In 1912, Wagner opened a Philadelphia studio and taught classes in outdoor painting at Addingham, and later, at the Pennsylvania Academy's summer school in Chester Springs. His reputation grew, and he took on additional classes at his studio in the Fuller Building. In 1913, Wagner exhibited in the now famous Armory Show in New York City. He exhibited frequently at the Pennsylvania Academy's annual exhibitions, and in 1914, was awarded the Fellowship Prize. He was awarded Honorable Mentions from the Pittsburgh International, the Philadelphia Art Club, and the Carnegie Institute in 1922. His paintings are in the collections of the Cleveland Museum; St. Louis Museum, MO; Fort Wayne Museum, IN; Kalamazoo Museum, MI; Rochester Museum, NY; Worcester Art Museum, MA, and the Reading Museum, PA. Fred Wagner died in Philadelphia in 1940.

Lacaze was a painter who was heavily influenced by Cubism and Post-Cubism, particularly by fellow Bordeaux painters such as André L’Hote. He was born in Angoulême, Charente and studied at the Lycée Montaigne in Bordeaux and it was there, under an inspirational art master, that his desire to be an artist was initiated. He enrolled at L’École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux and studied under André Edouard Marty. At first, his style was decidedly Cubist, showing the influence of Picasso through the aforementioned L’Hote. However he softened the linear effect somewhat as his career developed and this is particularly apparent in his paintings of nudes. He staged his first solo exhibition in Paris in Rue Visconti quite soon after leaving art school. He also exhibited through his career at other locations in Paris, his home city of Bordeaux, Sainte Maxine, Angoulême and Périgueux but he seems not to have had a particularly commercial attitude to his work apparently sometimes not even turning up to the opening nights. Lacaze was appointed Professor of Fine Art at Collège de Puyguillen and also joined the artistic group Maison des Artistes. Exhibitions: Paris, Galerie Visconiti; Périgueux, N.T.P.; Angoulême, Galerie Tison d’Argence; Bordeaux, Galerie du Loup; Sainte Maxine, Galerie L’Oleil Fauve. The Musée des Beaux Arts de Bordeaux also exhibited his work.

Charles Baxter (March 1809 - 10 January 1879) was an English portrait and subject painter, known especially for his portraits of pretty young women. Baxter was born in Little Britain, London in 1809, the son of a book clasp maker, and started his career apprenticed to a bookbinder. However, he gave up this business to commence life as a professional painter, chiefly of miniatures and portraits. In 1834 he made the acquaintance of George Clint, from whom he received some valuable instruction, and in the same year exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy. In 1839 he joined the Clipstone Street Society, and studied there along with Paul Falconer Poole, William Müller, Edward Duncan (1804-1882), Joseph John Jenkins (1811-1885), Francis William Topham (1808-18), and others, who afterwards became distinguished in the profession. He became a member of the Society of British Artists in 1842, and contributed to its exhibitions many of the poetic and rustic subjects and fancy portraits upon which his reputation chiefly rests. His female heads are especially characterised by refinement of expression and purity of colour.

A fine original watercolor painting of Pebble Beach Golf course Carmel California by James March Phillips a renowned California watercolorist. Measuring approx. 12 x 20 inches in excellent condition beautifully framed.

biography

James March Phillips was born in Fresno California in 1913. His art career began in the 1940's while attending Jean Turner Art Academy in San Francisco where is studied under such prominent artists as Louis J. Rogers, Alfred Owles, and J. Paget Fredricks. His paintings were sold in numerous galleries in the west during the 1940's and 1950's. In recent years his paintings have become quite valuable and have reached prices as high as $13,000 at San Francisco auction house Bonhams Butterfields. This is one of a pair please view the other listing of the 7th hole Pebble Beach.

Thad Emory Leland by John Hovard 
 ◦ The paintings of Thad Leland reflect his enduring association with the horse including the cultural spectacle of the Peruvian Paso, polo horses and racing thoroughbreds. Working in pastels, oils, acrylics, and watercolors, Thad Leland left a beautiful legacy of the spirit and tradition of the horse, its cultural harness and how man interacts with this spirit. 
It all started for Leland when he was a boy in Michigan, exercising the fine horses of Detroit millionaires. He went home and sketched these horses, which began the lifelong journey to recreate the spirit and beauty of the horse. 
Thad Emory Leland was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1914 and passed away in Pebble Beach, California, in 1987. He studied art at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, received a B.A. in fine art from the University of Michigan where he studied with Sarkis Sarkisian and John Carroll. 
Before the war, he exhibited throughout Wisconsin and Michigan, and was awarded a mural commission for the New York World's Fair. After World War II he received a masters degree in fine art from Stanford University. In the early 60s, his diligence to study equestrians continued with his painting and sketching of polo events at Pebble Beach, thoroughbred racing at Bay Meadows and Golden Gate tracks, and western riding events at the Salinas Rodeo and Monterey County Fair. He became sought after for commissioned portraiture.