William Lemos

Mount Hood From Clear Lake, Early 20th Century Large-Scale Panoramic Landscape

c.1930

Gorgeous landscape with two cows drinking water in a pond with Mt. Hood in background by listed artist William M. Lemos (American, 1861-1942). Signed "W.M. Lemos" lower right. Presented in vintage gilt-toned frame that shows wear (included as-is). Condition: Good: previously owned and used, with little or no signs of wear and is in good condition. No structural issues. Image size: 29"H x 49"W. Born in New York, Professor Lemos moved to San Francisco in 1887 where he established a studio at 106 Geary Street. He later moved to Santa Cruz in 1896, where he settled, painting murals for many local businessmen and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. As a boy Lemos earned money by wandering the streets and painting on request. Arriving in San Francisco in 1887, he established a studio at 106 Geary. With his wife Mabel, he worked in Los Angeles for a few years in the 1890s. After settling in Santa Cruz in 1896, he painted murals for many local businessmen. When the original Beach Casino was built there at the Boardwalk in 1904, Lemos was the first concessionaire and worked there for nearly 40 years. On his platform in the Casino, Lemos did paintings of redwoods, still lifes, forest fires, beach scenes, and marines. Many of his oils were done on redwood slabs which were popular with the tourists; in the early days these paintings sold for one dollar and up depending on the size of the work. After his vision failed and he was unable to paint, his last years were mostly spent fishing off the Municipal Pier with a friend who baited his hook for him because he could no longer see. In the March 27, 1941 Santa Cruz Sentinel News Lemos reminisced, "Them were the days when the Boardwalk was only twelve feet long and when business got slow I picked up my shotgun and went across the street and shot ducks where the Casa del Rey Hotel now stands." Exhibited: Calif. State Fair, 1885; Mechanics' Inst. (SF), 1889. In: Santa Cruz City Museum; Wawona Hotel (Yosemite). Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940" His mother was Julia Lemos, a Chicago artist famous for her depiction of the Chicago fire, “Two of Julia’s children became successful artists. Her eldest son, William, was a naïve still life, landscape, and mural painter. As a young boy in New York, he would wander the streets, earning money for the family, by ‘painting on request.’ At age 26, William moved to San Francisco, California. He opened an art studio and kept it running until he moved to Santa Cruz with his wife, Mabel, in 1896. During this period, he worked as a fresco artist painting ‘murals for many local businessmen.’ Exhibited California State Fair, Sacramento, 32nd annual, per Sacramento Daily Union, September 9, 1885. and article goes on to say “William Lemos and wife, Sacramento – Art school exhibits in which are shown such a variety of designs in decorative art, flower painting, and ornamentation, that one must give time to the examination.” Exhibited Mechanics Institute, San Francisco, 1889. “Lemos and his wife were in Fresno California 1890...

Luminous 1900 landscape of lake with mountains in background and stunning Aurora Borealis; a canoe rests on the shoreline by R. Briston (American, 20th Century). Signed lower left co...

Beautiful original pastel on archival paper of Mount Shasta in Northern California by the well known Hudson River artist, George Douglas. Signed and dated 1874 lower right. Condition is excellent. Recently professionally matted and framed in a antique silver style gallery frame. Overall framed measurements are 27 by 36 inches. Under glass. Provenance: A Pennsylvania collector. George Douglas Brewerton received lessons in art from Prof. Robert W. Weir at West Point where his father was Superintendent. In 1874, he was detailed to San Francisco as an officer in the Stevenson Regiment. In 1848, he underwent many adventures in Western deserts and mountains with Kit Carson, who crossed the country with news of the California Gold Rush. After serving as an aide to Gen. Rufus Saxton during the Civil War, Brewerton called himself “Colonel,” although he never received an army commission...

Charles Warren Eaton (1857 – 1937) The Shadow of Mount Rockwell, Glacier National Park, Montana, 1921 Oil on canvas 20 x 24 inches Signed lower right: CHAS WARREN EATON. Provenance: The artist The Macbeth Gallery, New York Private Collection Sotheby's New York, American Art, April 14, 1989 ConocoPhillips, Houston Simpson Galleries, Houston, Fine Art & Antiques, May 18, 2019, Lot 447 Exhibited: New York, The Macbeth Gallery, Paintings of Glacier National Park by Charles Warren Eaton, December 13, 1921 - January 2, 1922, no. 2. Literature: "Two Exhibitions at Macbeth's," American Art News, New York, Vol. XX, No. 10, December 17, 1921. A contemporary critic wrote that the paintings of Charles Warren Eaton appeal to “the dreamers who find in them the undiscovered scenes in which their fancy long has dwelt.” Eaton’s contemplative landscapes exude a spiritual quality that moves the observer into a similar frame of mind. He loved to depict the ethereal light of dawn and dusk in late autumn or winter, usually without any reference to human or animal figures or buildings. These Tonalist paintings, with their subdued palette and relatively intimate scale, marked a definite break with the fading popularity of the panoramic and romantic views of the Hudson River School painters. Charles Warren Eaton was born in Albany, New York to a family of limited means. He began painting while working in a dry-goods store. At age 22, he enrolled at the National Academy of Design in New York City and then studied figure painting at the Art Students League. By 1886, he was successful enough to quit his day job and make a living as a landscape painter. That year, he traveled to Europe with fellow Tonalist painters Leonard Ochtman and Ben Foster. In France, Eaton visited popular artist’s spots such as Paris, Fontainebleau and Grez-sur-Loing, and fell in love with the loose brushwork and moody style of French Barbizon painting. Returning to the United States, Eaton fell under the spell of George Inness, the foremost exponent of Barbizon style in the United States. In 1888, Eaton settled near Inness in Bloomfield, New Jersey, where Eaton lived until his death in 1937. In this period, he painted shadowy and ambiguous landscapes inspired by rural scenery in the northeastern United States. His signature theme was a cropped view of the branches, trunks, and foliage of a pine grove silhouetted against a delicately illuminated sunset or moonlit sky. He painted this vision so often between 1900 and 1910 that he picked up the sobriquet ‘‘The Pine Tree Painter.” After 1910, Eaton responded to the popularity of Impressionism by using brighter colors and painting sunlit daytime scenes. In 1921, he was hired to paint Glacier Lake, in Glacier National Park by the Great Northern Railroad Company as part of their ‘See America First’ campaign. He produced more than 20 paintings, among the artist's last works, that now poignantly remind viewers of the vast disappearing glaciers. Eaton tended to approach this mountain scenery from an oblique vantage point; he liked to capture small episodes, showing mountaintops nearly obscured by dramatically attenuated screens of fir trees. Eaton, like many Tonalist artists of his generation such as Henry Ward Ranger, John Francis Murphy, and Charles Melville Dewey...