One of our gems,
Joshua Meador, Tending the Net

As we have done since our beginning, Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery will be exhibiting an ever changing sampling of historic California paintings from our collection, and visitors will soon have the ability to reference our entire collection online at the gallery.

While browsing our website at home, if you wish to see aparticular painting fom our collectoin in person, you may let us know in advance of a future visit, and we will have it well lighted and ready for you to view when you arrive. We will also have a comfortable seating area to view videos and books related to California painting.

Beyond our collection of historic California paintings, together with Gary the works of three local artists will be featured: the watercolor paintings of Jean Warren, the oil paintings of Linda Sorensen, both of Bodega Bay, and the popular limited edition etchings of the late Gail Packer.

When he fled, he left behind his gallery containing about 1,400 works, most of which were looted by Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring. After the war, the allies located and returned most of these stolen works to the Dutch government which incorporated the paintings into the national collection and were dispersed to museums throughout the country. The paintings would remain owned by the Dutch government for the next six decades.

Pietro Antonio Rotari,
Young Woman with Bonnett and White Shawl and a book
Also known as The Virtuous Girl

In addition to viewing fine paintings, museum visitors will be offered an opportunity to reflect on the inequities of war, the looting of cultural property during the Holocaust, and ongoing efforts to recover artworks stolen during World War II. “This is a rare chance to tell the extraordinary story of restitution,” says Connie Wolf, Executive Director of the Contemporary Jewish Museum. “It’s a poignant story that resonates today as looting of artworks continues in conflicts around the world. We are thrilled to have these remarkable masterpieces on view for Bay Area audiences to see and experience.”

Published by the Bruce Museum and The Jewish Museum in association with Yale University Press, the lavishly illustrated 257-page catalog is available in the Museum’s gift store for $60.

Kunze is a small man, 27 years of age. His features are sharp his face blanched and emaciated. Years of application have done their work and there remains no trace of boyish vigor. His large blue eyes are sunk deep in his head and appear always to be gazing into space. Kunze looks and acts the dreamer that he is. He speaks in a whispered tone and mouths his words. His expression mostly is serious -- except when he talks of his work and ambitions. Then the motionless features beam and his thin lips part in a pleasing smile, for the hope of becoming a great artist is life to Kunze.

Art critics pronounce his work to be remarkable in view of the little instruction he has had. They say his paintings bespeak much talent. The pastoral is his favorite theme, for the rural surrounds of his early life have instilled in his heart a love for the fields and flocks.

Born in Saxony of poor parents, Kunze, while still unable to write his name, found himself fascinated in art and took to sketching what he saw about him. As he grew older the enchantment grew and his parents marveled at his talents. He sketched and painted the hills, the fields, the herds and the shepherds. He craved an opportunity to study painting and develop. Every minute that he was not working on the family holding he was painting or sketching. He had resolved not to permit poverty to curtail his ambitions. Environment had made him a student of the pastoral. The scenes of rural life were all that he saw.

Artistic talent was not scarce in the Kunze family, for while William was painting his older brother was studying music. In time the brother emigrated to America where he toiled for his instruction. He was soon recognized and became successful as a member of a symphony orchestra. The elder Kunze sent for his younger brother, hoping that in America he might be able to accumulate enough money to study art under competent tutors.

The young artist had little difficulty in securing work, but it was art that was occupying his mind, and try as he might, he found it impossible to become interested in routine duties. He worked here and there in different capacities, doing whatever he could to earn money. He earned barely enough for his living expenses. Often he found himself hard pressed to provide the plainest necessities.

Kunze wandered from city to city, working at whatever he could by day and spending his nights with his colors. He progressed slowly, for without tuition, he found it difficult to overcome the crudeness of his work.

Kunze arrived in San Francisco. He worked in cheap lodging houses, restaurants, anywhere that he could earn enough to live. He denied himself even ordinary necessities so that he could buy tubes and brushes.

Kunze wandered one day in March, 1910, into the memorial museum in Golden Gate park. In the art gallery he stood for hours in silent admiration before the great canvases. He espied a pastoral scene, the work of the immortal Millet. It was called “The Shepherd and His Flock.” In a way that only the master hand of the great Millet could portray, the painting pictured a shepherd leading his flocks from the fields at sunset.

The love of the pastoral which native environment had kindled in the soul of young Kunze kept him spellbound before the canvas. Men and women passed about him, but he did not see them. Visitors talked and stamped their feet, but he did not hear them, for his faculties were absorbed in studying the painting.

When Kunze left the art gallery it was with the firm resolve that he must learn to emulate the marvelous work of Millet. It he was too poor to pay for instruction in art, he could at least study the original painting for himself.

For days he kept himself closeted in his tiny room, trying to reproduce the scene that had won his admiration more than any canvas he had ever seen. Time and again he visited the art gallery to study more closely the picture and try his best to discover the secret of the artist’s genius. Each time he returned to his own canvas and renewed his feeble effort to duplicate the work of Millet.

As he struggled with the picture Kunze came to realize only too well that his own untrained hand could not duplicate the work of the great artist. He had failed to catch the secret of the master’s genius.

Golden Gate Park Museum, circa 1910

While Kunze sat dreaming before the painting in his dingy room, the theft had been discovered and scores of detectives were scouring the city for the stolen canvas. That a thief could cut such a painting from its frame and make away with his loot through the Sunday crowds baffled the police. Clues were run to earth, but still the theft of the canvas, valued at more than $10,000, remained one of the greatest mysteries in the city’s criminal history.

Perhaps Kunze would have been left undisturbed with his idol, had he not, in his great enthusiasm, confided his secret with an acquaintance. The information was more than the friend could keep and he proceeded to share his knowledge with the police. He led the detectives to the artist’s room. Quietly the officers opened the door, anticipating resistance.

They peered into the gloomy room to see the young artist seated before his treasure, gazing at it in silent admiration.

“I love that canvas with all my heart,” Kunze told the detectives as they placed him under arrest, “and I stole it so that I could study it all the time and learn myself the secret of the great Millet’s genius.”

In his cell, the artist pleaded for paper and pencil and made sketches of fields and trees. Men and women prominent in the art world heard the youth’s story and were impressed. They called on him and promised their aid in gaining for him a chance to study art.

When Kunze came to trial the men and women who had proffered aid appeared in the courtroom to give encouragement to the unfortunate. The prisoner told his story. The magistrate, accustomed to dealing with thieves of all classes, understood at a glance that this prisoner was no ordinary thief and consented to admit him to probation.

His sponsors took him in charge and promised to give him the long sought opportunity to gain an education in art. A position was secured for him in an art study, where he was to receive instruction in oil painting in return for his work about the place.

For six months Kunze kept diligently at his work, making himself generally useful and receiving instruction from the artist. His work showed that he benefited greatly by the instruction. Occasionally Kunze was paid a meager salary which was believed sufficient for his sustenance. But while Kunze’s friends supposed that he was spending his small wages for living expenses, the artist, highly enthused and elated by the progress he was making, invested his earnings in painting materials so that he might advance by still greater strides. He was content to deny himself the most common necessities of life to say nothing of pleasure and comfort so that he could better pursue his studies.

With the few dollars that he earned, Kunze purchased paintings that pleased his eye and materials to work with at night.

For months Kunze continued this life of toil and denial, going about at his work hungry and falling more and more in debt. When six months had elapsed he found himself in debt for his room rent and compelled to eat free lunches in saloons because he had not the money to buy his food.

Jean-François Millet
(October 4, 1814 – January 20, 1875)
was a French painter and one of the founders
of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his scenes of peasant farmers; he can be categorized
as part of the naturalism and realism movements.

Kunze crossed the bay to Oakland one Sunday morning. As he walked along the street, famished and penniless, he came to a building under construction. A curious impulse led him into the structure. There he espied a kit of tools left by a mechanic. It occurred to him to take the tools and sell them that he might buy something to eat. Hunger had robbed him of his sense of honor and the primitive instinct prevailed. He picked up the tools and started away, But he had gone only a few paces when he stood face to face with a policeman. He was placed under arrest and readily confessed his crime.

Kunze was led to jail now fully awakened to what he had done. He was brought before the superior court and sentenced to two years in San Quentin. Thus William Kunze became a convict.

They took the art mad youth to the penitentiary. They cropped his hair and exchanged his shabby clothes for a suit of stripes. They stamped a number on his coat and he became one of a community of criminals.

Warden John Hoyle soon heard of the young prisoner’s case and decided to give him an opportunity to work out his redemption. With his usual broadmindedness the warden held that if the state helped Kunze during his imprisonment, Kunze would be able to help himself when he regained his freedom. Arrangements were being made at that time for the annual Christmas performance given by the convicts in the prison theater. A scene painter was needed and the warden permitted Kunze to begin the work. Kunze was overjoyed at the liberal opportunity. His spirits rose high and he began his work with the firm resolve to justify the confidence placed in him. He painted the scenery and curtains for the stage that caused the officials to look on in surprise.

On a drop curtain he painted a beautiful allegorical picture of a chariot driven through the clouds and surrounded by angels. One look at the canvas after its completion convinced the warden of the real talent of the young convict painter.

The Work was a “task” to which Kunze was assigned, but Kunze regarded it quite differently. From the dull monotony of the jute mill to the work that he loved was a new lease of life to him.

After the scenes and curtains for the prison play had been completed, the warden was convinced that two years of practice with the brush and palette would enable Kunze to leave prison better able to face the world and struggle for the recognition of his talent.

So Kunze was put to work in the warden’s own residence. He understood and appreciated what was being done for him and began painting from the inspiration that filled his soul. His first work was a fresco on the wall of the warden’s bedroom. It shows a child seated in a

swing and surrounded by flowers. The work has been admired by connoisseurs of art, who pronounce Kunze an artist of unusual talent. He has painted many frescoes.

With the end of his term not far distant, Kunze continues to paint day after day, looking only to the future and trying to forget the past. He is anxious to begin life anew. Through the long days he paints either in the warden’s home or in the prison yard.

William Kunze is fighting to wipe out the brand of the stripes and to “make good.” Back to the Top