Harper's Weekly along with fellow French artist Paul Frenzeny.

During their year-long trek Westward, Tavernier created 100 illustrations of frontier life. His sketchbooks served him well in later years as he continued to produce paintings of the West and its Indian inhabitants. Today, some of these images are among the very best and noble we have of Native American cultures.

Prior to New York, he had spent a brief time in London as an illustrator after having left his native France. He was born in Paris in 1844 and trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. As a twenty-one year old, two of his paintings were accepted into the Paris Salon in 1865. When Paris was besieged by the Prussians in 1870, Tavernier served in the French army as an artist-correspondent. After the armistice in 1871, he worked as an illustrator in London. A year later, he crossed the Atlantic for New York.

In San Francisco, the talented young Tavernier was successful and popular. Jerome Hart explained Tavernier's talent this way, "He could do anything with a brush -- or without a brush, for he could paint with his spatulated thumb. His brain worked like lightening, and when he was taken in travail with an idea, his wonderful hands -- for he sometimes painted with both of them -- strove to keep up with his electric brain."

Tavernier ended up trapped in Hawaii because he became indebted to new creditors there, and was prohibited by law to depart. By 1888, Tavernier's health was less than what it should have been. He was bothered by his asthma, and to counter its effects, he vacationed for several weeks with David Hitchcock on his family ranch in the mountains above Hilo. But as his health deteriorated, so did his ability to create great landscape paintings.

His fingers would shake as he tried to paint. In his final days, he sold some of his paintings in Peacock's liquor store just underneath his studio on Merchant Street in Honolulu. He also taught painting classes to help cover his expenses.

On May 18, 1889, after having hosted visitors early in the day, Jules Tavernier was found dead in his studio due to a heart attack. A contributing factor to his heart problems was his alcoholism. As was typical in the tropics, his funeral was held late in the day of his death. In 1890, The Bohemian Club in San Francisco had a large monument erected over his grave in Nu'uanu Memorial Park.

This past January, we featured an article from the San Francisco Call in 1911 (22 years after the artist's death) regarding Tavernier and his studio stove.

In February of 2010, we wrote an article about Hawaii's Volcano School, showing examples of Kilauea paintings by Tavernier, David Hitchcock, Earnst William Christmas, Charles Furneaux, Ogura Yonesuke Itoh, Edouardo Lefebvre Scovell, William Pinkney Toler, Harry Cassie Best, and a very late enrollee into the school in 1968, California Desert painter, John W.

Hilton. For a sampling of Tavernier's talent and marvelous life, visit the Crocker Museum soon. The exhibition ends May 11.

A couple of months later, our mailbox contained two copies of the February issue of "Casemate." Following is some biographical information regarding Dominique Bertail, and our best loose translation of Dominique Bertail's comments.

Dominique Bertail's perspective on Western art is quite helpful for us. Off the cuff, most Americans believe fine art painting and cartooning are art forms cut from different cloth. But Dominique Bertail sees no such distinction. For him, the elements of form, composition and color are found in both. As he interprets Swinnerton's Smoke Tree Wash, he explains how this painting contains some of the same artistic talent Swinnerton used so effectively in his pioneering cartoons.

Some years ago when I was studying under Thierry Smolderen, we were asked to discover the origins of the comic book and write about notable designers. It was the beginning of the internet. Because of the internet, I learned of the work of Swinnerton. During my travels in America, I went on a pilgrimage to Monument Valley, I saw the very studio used by Swinnerton and Herriman. On the road to Flagstaff at the Weatherford Hotel (this would be the Wetherill-Colville Guest Ranch in Kayenta, Arizona) where he had lived, I fell on one of Swinnerton's paintings. I was impressed by this lovely painting with desert light, as palpable as Frederic Remington, the American painter of Indians. With Swinnerton's cartoonist side, he maintains a very human relationship with plants.

Always. The only trace of animal life is at the bottom of the canvas. To the right of the two stones that occupy the center of the table, the desert floor has footprints of a small animal. It is as if Swinnerton is inviting us to burrow in.

How do you analyze the composition of the picture?

It shows Swinnerton's double pleasure in the desert. On the left, he shows the mountains. Compositionally, you think of the

work of Hockney. On the right, the depth of the desert out of sight. A third pleasure is the river, rarely with water in this place. When one comes upon this place, we are faced with a peaceful moment, and behold a small community of plants.

And the small community of stones?

All the actors in this scene are arrested in their pose. Time is suspended. There is a communion between the vegetable and mineral worlds. Swinnerton was 30 years old when he was waiting to die, and found sweetness in the desert. He died at age 98. All his desert years were experienced as a bonus. His style of painting evolved little between 1920 and 1950, as if time itself had stopped.

How do you define the light of the desert?

It appears to be 2 or 3 in the afternoon. The sky is blue turquoise. In the desert, the color of the rocks is particular. Violet at the back-end, red at the middle level, gray in the foreground. Each mountain has its own color, very vivid. This is pure painting. Part of this region is called the Painted Desert! It is for these colors and the light that John Ford turned to for his

landscapes. This area of the West blends the cultures of the Hopi Indians and the Spanish. In Flagstaff, the writer Zane Grey, specialist of the American western, occupied a room in the same hotel as Swinnerton. As soon as I can, I will go there.

You're also attracted to wild places?

For two years, I worked on a farm in South Armenia, the Karabakh side, not far from the border with Azerbaijan. I kept flocks, a horse, and cows grazed freely there. It was one of those places that do not belong to anyone, private property does not exist. It was a little like that in the American West during the early 20th century, before barbed wire. There was a feeling of absolute freedom and beauty in infinite landscapes. Today, you can still find that feeling in Monument Valley. There are few people there, the sun is burning and water is scarce. In this hostile territory, there is potential danger which paradoxically invigorates you to win. You realize the value of life.

On view will be works from late 19th and early 20th century painters including Eugene Boudin, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Vincent Van Gogh, and Edouard Vuillard.

In 1862, four young Parisian artists began studying with Charles Gleyre: Alfred Sisley, Frederic Bazille, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet. In the early 1860's, these young artists struggled to get enough money to buy paint. Due to the political climate, none of these artists gained a foothold until after the Franco-Prussian War. During their younger days, they served as each other's model. Here in Claude Monet Reading 1872, a youthful dark bearded Monet is painted by Renoir, smoke rising from a pipe while reading a newspaper.

Vincent Van Gogh enjoyed painting flowers. He is most famous for his renditions of sunflowers and purple iris. In 1883, he painted this scene of Flower Beds in Holland 1883, patches of tulips providing a delightful splash of multi colored brilliance contrasted with the otherwise dark clouded skies and brown shadowed buildings of Holland.

Van Gogh's friend Paul Gauguin was a leader-member of the post impressionists and was quite influential in the French avant-garde. In 1888, he and Van Gogh spent nine weeks together in the Yellow House painting in Arles.

Vincent Van Gogh, Flowerbeds in Holland 1883

His Self Portrait dedicated to Carriere is from this period, and shows a youthful Gauguin vigorous and able. This portrait was given to his artist friend Eugene Carriere. Gauguin used color to express emotion to capture the inner self. Gauguin sailed for Tahiti

in 1891 and died in the South Pacific in 1903.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Madame Henriot 1876 is a portrait of the actress Henrietta Henriot. That was her stage name. She also was Renoir's favorite model during the 1870's, being the subject of at least eleven of his paintings between 1874 and 1876. This is the only painting which Henrietta herself owned. Renoir renders her with a "confident and demure persona," shown through her warm direct gaze.

Artist's Sister at a Window by Berthe Morisot is a painting of her older sister Edma, painted the same year she was married. Nearly five

In the final stage of the exhibition is Edouard Vuillard's The Yellow Curtain. The subject is Vuillard's mother who is glancing at herself in a bedroom mirror during a private moment. Vuillard was one of the group known as the Nabis, Hebrew for "prophet." They experimented with works which represented psychological states.

Our Gallery Hours are from 12:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M., Wednesday through Sunday. We are also available for scheduled appointments, especially for those who wish to view the gallery on Mondays or Tuesdays. Please call Dan at the gallery and schedule a visit, or call him on his cellphone, 510-414-9821.

The Walt Disney Family Museum
This museum tells Walt's story from the early days.
(on the Parade Grounds) 104 Montgomery Street,
The Presidio of San Francisco, CA 94129
-- view location on Google Maps --
THE WALT DISNEY FAMILY MUSEUM PRESENTS
LEADING LADIES AND FEMMES FATALES: THE ART OF MARC DAVIS ... April 30 – November 3, 2014