07-875-2911 Homepage | Current Exhibit | Archives | Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery Monthly
Button Our Artists Button A-B Button C-D Button E-G Button H-He
Button Hi-J Button K-M Button N-P Button Q-S Button T-Z
California / American School | Recent Acquisitions | Printbin | Also Available | Artist Friends | Previously Offered
Featuring The Joshua Meador
Collection
Desert Paintings
by Kathi Hilton
Seascapes & Landscapes
by Alex Dzigurski II
Seascapes & Landscapes
by Linda Sorensen
Watercolors by
Jean Warren
Bodega Bay Photography by Diane Perry


Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery Exterior Thumbnail
Jewels from our Collection Pan Shot
Jewels from our Collection

A New Gallery Exhibition
March 2 through May, 2016
Jewels from our Collection
A New Gallery Exhibition, March 2 through May, 2016
This show presents some of our best paintings from some of California's best historic painters. Below are photos of some of the paintings on exhibit and brief bio sketches of the artists who created them.
Sunset Glow, Mt. Shasta 1921 James Everett Stuart, 1852-1941 oil on board, 11 x 17
Sunset Glow, Mt. Shasta
1921
James Everett Stuart, 1852-1941
oil on board, 11 x 17
Lupines on the Northern Coast Manuel Valencia 1856-1935 oil on canvas, 22 x 36
Lupines on the Northern Coast

Manuel Valencia 1856-1935
oil on canvas, 22 x 36

James Everett Stuart 1852-1941 was 8 years old when he arrived in California in 1860. He studied in San Francisco with Thomas Hill and William Keith. His early works were filled with the mood and mystery of the French Barbizon School. He loved the wild areas of the west, painting north to Alaska and he held a special fascination with Yellowstone. He was a Bohemian Club member. His paintings have hung on the walls of many of the clubs prestigious members including the White House.

Manuel Valencia 1856-1935 Manuel Valencia is descended from California's Spanish aristocracy. His grandfather was administrator of San Francisco's Presidio. He studied in Mexico and was a member of the Esquela de Bellas Artes de Mexico. In San Francisco, he studied with Jules Tavernier and painted often with artist friends Angel Espoy and Carl Jonnevold. He worked as a commercial artist and was art editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, a position paid for by art patron, M. H. de Young. He sold one of his paintings of Yosemite to President William McKinley.

Grazing Below Mount Tamalpais Gordon Coutts 1868-1937 oil on canvas 11 1/2 x 18 1/4
Grazing Below Mount Tamalpais

Gordon Coutts 1868-1937
oil on canvas 11 1/2 x 18 1/4
The Edge of the Desert Frances Upson Young 1870-1950  oil on cavas, 25 x 30
The Edge of the Desert

Frances Upson Young 1870-1950
oil on canvas, 25 x 30

Gordon Coutts 1868-1937 was famous on four continents. He began his studies in Glasgow, Scotland and then attended the Academie Julian in Paris. There he met and married fellow artist Alice Gray, an Australian from Melbourne. He accompanied Alice back to Australia were he taught at the Art Society of New South Wales in Sydney. After achieving success down under, he and Alice exhibited at the Royal Academy in London and then moved to San Francisco where he was a member of the Bohemian Club. After the earthquake in '06, he moved to the Piedmont section of Oakland near fellow artist Xavier Martinez.

After Alice and Gordon divorced in 1918, Gordon visited North Africa, doing scenes and portraits of daily life in Tangiers. In 1925, he developed tuberculosis and moved to Palm Springs. He built his desert home in the motif of castles he knew in Tangiers, today, an historic hotel named Korakia. When Coutts lived there, he was the toast of Palm Springs and hosted artist friends such as Nicolai Fechin, Grant Wood, Winston Churchill, and even silent era film star Rudolph Valentino.

Frances Upson Young 1870-1950 Frances Upson studied at the Cleveland School of Art and at Alnqick and near Oxford, England. In 1892, she marred attorney Robert Young. They moved to Hollywood where Robert became Hollywood's city attorney before the city was annexed to Los Angeles. She continued her art studies with Paul Lauritz, Lorenzo Latimer, Anna Hills and Beatrice Whittlesey. She was a member of the Laguna Beach Art Association.

Frances was part of an monumental historical mix up in the annuls of art history. In recent years, details of her life and those of a similarly named artist named Florence Young were melded into one. The merging of the biographies of these two artists became an amalgam, a newly minted artist named Florence Upson Young including the known paintings of both painters.

This historical anomaly was discovered and untangled by art historian and author Maurine St. Gaudens, and is addressed in her new book Emerging from the Shadows, a four-volume survey of Women Artists Working in California 1860-1960. Our Frances Upson Young painting The Edge of the Desert is featured in this book. Maurine St. Gauden's Women Artists Working in California 1860-1960 and France's painting, The Edge of the Desert are now available for viewing as part of Jewels from our Collection.

Lupines on a California Hillside, 1923 Arthur Merton Hazard, 1872-1930 oil on canvas, 24 x 34
Lupines on a California Hillside,
1923
Arthur Merton Hazard, 1872-1930
oil on canvas, 24 x 34
Springtime in the Desert Dedrick Brandes Stuber 1878-1954 oil on canvas, 30 x 36
Springtime in the Desert

Dedrick Brandes Stuber 1878-1954
oil on canvas, 30 x 36

In Boston, Arthur Merton Hazard 1872-1930 was a member of "The Boston School," a group including Edmund Tarbell and Joseph DeCamp. In Paris he studied with Henri Blanc. He is known for his portraits of Boston's society women. Due to failing health, he moved to the kinder climate of Los Angeles where he did portraits including silent movie stars Charles M. Russell and Douglas Fairbanks. He is also known for his California landscapes. His work is in the collections of The Red Cross Museum, Washington DC, the National Museum, Temple Israel Boston, and the Houses of Parliament in Ottowa, Canada.

Dedrick Stuber 1878-1954 came to California in 1920 and is known for his landscape paintings in California and Arizona, especially his stylized eucalyptus trees. He studied at the Art Students League in New York and was deeply influenced by Barbizon painters Camille Corot and Charles Francois Daubigny. In the light of California, his bright skies and forms of clouds are distinctively his. His work resides in the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., the Pasadena Art Museum, The Fleischer Museum of Scottsdale, Arizona, and the Irvine Museum.  He was a member of the Laguna Beach Art Association, the Glendale Art Association, the Painters and Sculptors of Southern California, and the Painters and Sculptors.

Rialto Bridge, Venice, Italy 1917 Richard Dey DeRibcowsky 1880-1936 oil on canvas. 20 x 30
Rialto Bridge
, Venice, Italy 1917
Richard Dey DeRibcowsky 1880-1936
oil on canvas. 20 x 30
Sunlit Face Conrad Buff 1886-1975 oil on paperboard, 16 x 24
Sunlit Face
Conrad Buff 1886-1975
oil on paperboard, 16 x 24

Richard Dey DeRibcowsky 1880-1936 was born in Bulgaria in 1880 and studied in Paris, Florence and St. Petersburg. In 1904 at the young age of 24, he moved moved to Buenos Aires. There he founded the Academy of Beaux Arts in Buenos Aires. In 1920, he moved to the U.S., continuing his travels in America and Europe. Two of his paintings of Venice done in 1917 are in our gallery collection. While living in Los Angeles, he was in an automobile accident, leaving him wheelchair bound the rest of his life. He resided at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel where his paintings were displayed on walls and were offered for sale.

Conrad Buff 1886-1975 was born in Switzerland and studied in Munich. At age 19, he distanced himself from his demanding father, leaving Switzerland for America. He first worked on a Wisconsin dairy farm in an isolated rural Swiss-speaking region, but in two short years, made his way to Los Angeles where he quickly became associated with local artists.

At this time, Edgar Payne received a huge commission for murals for the Congress Hotel in Chicago. He hired young local artists to assist creating these murals and Buff was fortunate to join with Jack Wilkerson Smith, Peter Nielsen, and Grayson Sayer in completing Payne's vision. He married his wife Mary who became a later successful children's author, and Conrad illustrated her award winning stories. After becoming an established painter in his own right, he became a close friend and painting partner of Maynard Dixon and he and Mary were close friends of a young Walt Disney artist, Joshua Meador.

Desert Charm c 1954, Mt. San Jacinto Paul Grimm, 1870-1950 oil on canvas, 24 x 30
Desert Charm
c 1954, Mt. San Jacinto
Paul Grimm, 1887-1965
oil on canvas, 24 x 30
Paul Lauritz Passing Storm
Passing Storm, Carmel, California
Paul Lauritz 1889-1975
oil on board, 23 x 36
(this painting is published in
Painters of the Desert by Ed Ainsworth, 1960.)

South African Paul Grimm 1891-1977 studied at the Dusseldorf Royal Academy before moving to Hollywood in 1919. After arriving in California, he painted backdrops for silent films before settling in Palm Springs. There, desert painters Edgar Payne and Jimmy Swinnerton were among his friends. He is well known for his desert scenes, paintings of the California Missions, and his portraits of Native Americans. His studio on North Canyon Road had a notable artist visitor, Dwight Eisenhower. Ike said, "I profited from the experience of seeing how a real artist creates the effects he wants."

Paul Lauritz 1889-1975 was born in Larvik, Norway. After brief art studies in Larvik, his family moved to Vancouver, British Columbia. From there, Paul made his way south to Portland and soon afterward, established himself in Los Angeles. With hard work, he established a reputation for his portraits, landscapes and sea scapes. He was a well beloved art teacher at both the Chouinard School of Art and the Otis Art Institute, with many of California's great painters among his students. He was a member of the Laguna Beach Art Association, the Royal Society of Art in England and the Salmagundi Club in New York. His work is displayed in many museums, including Sacramento's Crocker Museum, the Irvine Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Eucalyptus and Marsh Sam Hyde Harris 1889-1977 oil on canvas, 20 x 24
Eucalyptus and Marsh

Sam Hyde Harris 1889-1977
oil on canvas, 20 x 24

Fall in the Canyon, Anza-Borrego State Park John W. Hilton 1904-1983 oil on canvas, 18 x 24
Fall in the Canyon,
Anza-Borrego State Park
John W. Hilton 1904-1983
oil on canvas, 18 x 24

Sam Hyde Harris 1889-1977 Sam's 6' 3" height, his affable personality and his unique artistic talents have gained him an honored place at the table of California artists.

At the age of 15, he came to LA from Middlesex, England, arriving in 1904. He studied painting with a long list of artists including Hanson Puthuff. In 1913, he visited Europe's museums. When he returned to LA, he married Phoebe Mulholland, niece of William Mulholland of the LA Water District. During the Great Depression, he taught art at the Chouinard Art Institute. After a divorce, he purchased a home owned by Jack Wilkinson Smith on Champion Place in Alhambra just south of Pasadena. The block became known as "Artist's Alley," and the "Montmartre of the Southwest." His neighbors included Frank Tenny Johnson, Eli Harvey, Clyde Forsythe. Every winter, Clyde Forsythe's old studio mate from New York, Norman Rockwell would visit. Sam is well known for both his commercial work and his fine art paintings, especially his stylized eucalyptus trees. Late in his career, he painted many desert scenes and was a close friend of Jimmy Swinnerton.

John W. Hilton 1904-1983 studied with many of the greats, including Jimmy Swinnerton, Maynard Dixon, Clyde Forsythe and Nicolai Fechin. He was born in China, the son of missionary parents. As a young man in LA, he made jewelry for wealthy clients, including silent film stars. At this time, he made gem hunting excursions into the desert and was hooked. By the 1930's, he moved to Thermal, California, a small town between Palm Springs and the Salton Sea.

There, and opened a gem shop where he tried to sell his "self-taught" early paintings. One of his early customers was Jimmy Swinnerton. In short order, Jimmy and his artist friends Clyde Forsythe and Maynard Dixon were good friends. The gem shop's back room became John's private art school with a faculty an impressive faculty of great painters. In time and with lots of hard work, John developed into a fine painter. His articles and paintings were often published in Desert Magazine and Arizona Highways Magazine. He was a member of New York's Salmagundi Club. Later in his career, he studied with the great Russian portraitist, Nicolai Fechin who often visited the Palm Springs area. He also was friends with fellow artist, Dwight Eisenhower, an
association which lead to one of John's paintings hanging in Ike's Oval Office.

Song of Bodie 1974 Ralph Love 1907-1992 oil on canvas, 14 x 18
Song of Bodie
1974
Ralph Love 1907-1992
Oil on canvas, 14 x 18

Joshua Meador Cliff Shapes
Cliff Shapes, Meador Family Collection
Joshua Meador 1911-1965
Oil on linen, 24 x 36

Ralph Love 1907-1992 was a preacher who played the violin and painted. In the 1950's he opened his ART SHACK in Temecula, located in the high desert of eastern Orange County, California. While painting or teaching, if he'd run out of inspiration painting, he would lay down his brushes and pick up his violin and play a bit until the next wave of inspiration would arrive. He studied briefly with Sam Hyde Harris, but was, for the most part, self taught. He is especially well known for his desert paintings and his paintings of the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley. Senator Barry Goldwater, an avid art collector of desert paintings said, "Ralph Love is the finest living American artist I know, and I could look at his work all day long." His daughter is Lee Love Youngman of the Lee Youngman Gallery in Calistoga.

Joshua Meador 1911-1965 is best known as Walt Disney Studios Director of Animation Effects during the glory days of early Disney animation 1937-1965. But, although he truly loved his "day-job," Josh always thought of himself as an impressionist. He often mused, "Impressionism can be informed by modern art." His painting Cliff Shapes is an example, done with a technique employing nearly alternating perpendicular palette knife stokes of cliffs rising above beach combers near his home north of Mendocino in Caspar.

Our gallery features the Meador Family Collection including some paintings once owned by Walt Disney. Our Joshua Meador webpage includes two films, one called 4 Artists Paint 1 Tree done for Disney's TV show in 1958, featuring Joshua Meador demonstrating his palette knife technique. The other is an effects reel of effects Joshua Meador created.

(PLEASE NOTE ... Most of our Meador collection is not currently at the gallery. If you wish to see particular Meador paintings, give us an advance request noting the time of your visit, and we will have the painting for available for viewing when you arrive.)