William Winthrop Ward Art

William Winthrop Ward was born in Walsall near London, England, on June 12, 1901. Ward immigrated to Boston in 1916 and spent much of his youth boating off the coast of Massachusetts. After a stint with the U.S. Marines, Ward came to California in 1927. He began painting while tending the Point Lobos Lighthouse on the coast at San Francisco. His work came to the attention of local artist Heliodor Hammarstrom, who tended the windmills in the Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Hammarstrom encouraged Ward and introduced him to George Demont Otis, who taught him for several years. Ward was also a pupil of portraitist Thomas Leighton. In 1940, Ward moved down the peninsula to Mountain View to work for NASA. Working with oil, watercolor, and pastel, he created colorful wharf scenes, marines, and landscapes. His works were exhibited at the Oakland Art Gallery in California (1939–41), the Stevens Hotel in Chicago (1941), the Society for Sanity in Art in Chicago and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco (1942–44), Palo Alto City Library in California (1953), the Los Altos Art Association, the Palo Alto Art Club and the Southwest Art Association.