Western Art has become increasingly popular in the United States, earning participation in prestigious auctions outside the Southwest. Below are the artists in the Bodega Bay Heritage collection who created Western Art. Each image below links to the artist's page where you can learn about the artist and see all paintings we offer by that artist. Several of these artists have more than one Western painting in our collection.

Conrad Buff 1886-1975 ... In his late teens, Swiss born Conrad Buff studied art in Munich. Soon after, Buff migrated to Wisconsin, quickly making his way to Los Angeles. In LA, he became good friends with Maynard Dixon and Edgar Payne. In 1936, he befriended a young Joshua Meador, a recent graduate of the Art Institute in Chicago who moved to L.A. to work for Walt Disney.His unique style departed greatly from the Southern California "Eucalyptus School."

Ferdinand Burgdorff 1881-1975 was born in Cleveland, and studied in Paris and Florence. In 1907, he hopped box cars and headed West. For a while, he lived in the Sandia region, west of Albuquerque. He then moved to California, becoming an illustrator for Sunset Magazine. He settled in Carmel and was one a long-term member of the Carmel Art Association. He often made painting trips to the Grand Canyon and the Hopi reservations nearby.

Jade Fon 1911-1983 ... Jade Fon was raised in Winslow, Arizona. He studied at the Art Students League in NY, and exhibited with the California Watercolor Society. To pay the bills, he painted background scenery for the movies, including 1939's Gone with the Wind. He taught art at Diablo Valley College, and worked as a commercial illlustrator. He frequently taught very popular watercolor workshops at the Asilomar Conference Center in Monterey.

Grace Fountain 1858-1942 ... Grace was born the Northern California town of Yreka. She established her studio in Portland. In 1907 at the age of 50, just a year after the '06 quake, she moved to Oakland where she maintained a studio and taught art. She is known for creating epic landscapes on large canvases. From Oakland, she made painting trips all over the West, including the Grand Canyon and the Cascades from Mt. Hood to Mount Shasta. This painting, Sunrise, Grand Canyon was exhibited at the California Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.

John W. Hilton 1908-1983 ... John Hilton had a fascinating life. He was born in China, a son of missionary parents, and he had crossed the Pacific numerous times as a boy. As a young man, John worked in the jewelry trade. In his time off, he became a rock hound, familiarizing himself with the deserts east of San Diego. In time, he relocated to Thermal, a tiny crossroads southeast of Palm Springs. He became a self taught gemologist, geologist, botanist, zoologist and painter. He maintained a gem shop in Thermal, with the backroom serving as his studio. One day, Jimmy Swinnerton stopped by, and the two became lifelong friends. Soon afterward, Hilton's back room became his own elite private art school, with teachers like Jimmy Swinnerton, Clyde Forsythe, Maynard Dixon and even the great Russian painter Nicolai Fechin. After Hilton became well established, he had other noteworthy painting friends, Dwight D. Eisenhower and James Cagney. Other notables among Hilton's personal friends were General George S. Patton and industrialist Howard Hughes.

Emilio Lanzi 1884-1965 ... Emilio was born in Bern, Switzerland. He studied at the Swiss Art Academy of Bern, at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Colorossi, and Academie Julian of Paris, France. He taught art at the Keszthelyi Academy of Fine Arts, and was a member of numerous associations including San Francisco's Bohemian Club. He is known for California and Arizona Desert scenes, marines, still lifes, and portraits. He exhibited at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles in 1954.

Ned Jacob 1938- ... Ned Jacob is a Western artist, known especially for authentic Indian works. After graduating high school in New Jersey, he hitchhiked to Montana. He worked at a trading post there and met painter Ace Powell. He lived among Blackfeet, collected artifacts, and painted scenes of Native American life. He then moved to Taos, New Mexico. He met and was greatly influenced by Nicolai Fechin. In 1966, he moved to Denver, and became a well known Western artist.

Joshua Meador 1911-1965 ... Joshua Meador is the featured artist of our gallery. Beyond his fine art paintings, he was Walt Disney Studio's Director of Animation Effects for nearly 30 years where he was one of the directors of Fantasia and part of an Oscar winning team for animation effects for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Primarily a coastal painter, Joshua Meador also created paintings of the high Sierra, the California Deserts, mining towns, and Native American scenes in New Mexico.

Robert Rishell 1917-1976 ... Robert Rishell was a Bay Area artist. He was a member of the Society of Western Artists and a member of San Francisco's Bohemian Club. Among his Western Art paintings are stunning portraits of the Navajo people, noted for their sharpness, dark shadow with dazzling light. Speaking of this use of contrast, Robert explained, "You need dark to show light." The High Trail with its dappled sunlight is an excellent example of Rishell's use of dark and light.

Hal Reed 1921-2003 ... Hal Reed studied at the Art Center School of Los Angeles and the Art League of San Francisco. He studied privately with Nicholai Fechin at Fechin's Santa Monica studio until Fechin's death in 1981 at the age of 72. This portrait of an indian holding an ear of corn show's Fechin's influence on Reed's painting style.

Elizabeth Schleussner, 1881-1956 ... Elizabeth came to Los Angeles around 1920. She married a wealthy stock broker, Otto W. Schleussner. After injuring her hand, she took up painting as therapy. Her therapy became her life long passion. She became a skilled painter, known for her landscapes in and around Los Angeles, including her stylized paintings of gracefully tall, lean eucalyptus trees. She associated with many LA artists, enjoying excursions to paint in the California and Arizona deserts.

Elmer Stanhope, 1907-1956 ... Before moving to California, Elmer Stanhope studed at the Art Institute of Chicago. He was one of the founders of the Hayward Art Association. After WW II, he partnered with another Hayward artist, Will Frates, and together they opened the Frates-Stanhope Art Studio on Foothill Blvd. Elmer favoured painting in watercolor. He was a master of wet into wet California style watercolor. He died young, suffering a heart attack the day after his 49th birthday. Stanhope Lane in Hayward is named in his honor.

Dedrick Brandes Stuber, 1878-1954 ... Dedrick Stuber studied at the Art Students League in New York. He was deeply influenced by French Barbizon painters Jean Baptiste Camille Corot and Charles Francois Daubigny. His work resides in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the Pasadena Art Museum, The Fleischer Museum of Scottsdale, Arizona, and the Irvine Museum.

James Swinnerton, 1875-1974 ... Jimmy Swinnerton is known as the Dean of California's desert painters. A San Franciscan, Jimmy had his start with the Hearst Newspapers along with his art school classmate, Maynard Dixon. Jimmy's skill at drawing for the paper soon lead to a new feature which became the cartoon strip. Jimmy followed Hearst to New York, and became a young, highly skilled and highly paid socially ascendant cartoonist. Then, a devastating diagnosis, tuberculosis. Hearst put Jimmy on a train to Palm Springs to recuperate. At the turn of the 20th century, Palm Springs was a dusty Indian settlement. Jimmy began painting the desert and recovered and came to love the desert. He encouraged others to join him, including Maynard Dixon and Clyde Forsythe, his cartoonist and illustrator studio-mate back in New York. Jimmy lived to be 99 years old. Years after his bout with TB, Jimmy was asked how he survived. He paused and said, "I guess I forgot to die."

Ralph Love, 1907-1992 ... Ralph Love was a self taught painter, although he did take advantage of an opportunity to paint with Sam Hyde Harris over a two year period. He loved to teach. His students were artists throughout Southern California who would gather at Ralph's "Art Shack" in Temecula. Ralph is best known for his paintings of the Grand Canyon. His work resides in the collections of former Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater and writer Erle Stanley Gardner. His work is in regional museums in the Southwest and has been published in Southwest periodicals such as Southwest Art Magazine, Western Art Digest, and Art of the West.

Milford Zornes 1908-2008 ... Milford Zornes was a successful artist and art teacher. He is known for his California Style watercolors. As a young artist, he was awarded a one-man show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. His work was noticed at a show of WPA artists by Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Roosevelt purchased one of Milford's paintings for the White House collection. During WW II, Milford was drafted. His job in the Army was to serve as the official artist for the China, India and Burma theaters. His last exhibition took place at the Pasadena Museum of Art. It was a celebration of his 100th birthday, January 26, 2008, where he said he was working on his next projects. He died less than a month later.

Carl Hoerman, 1885-1955 ... Carl was a successful Chicago architect, but enjoyed excaping the city as often as he could. He enjoyed the beauty of the dune country in Western Michigan along Lake Michigan's shore. He built a chalet near the town of Saugatuck which he promoted as an art colony and tourist destination. To escape Midwestern winters, he headed West and enjoyed painting the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley, for which he is best known. He built a winter home in Palm Springs and was a friend and painting partner of the desert painters, including Jimmy Swinnerton and John W. Hilton.

Alexander Dzigurski 1911-1995 ... Alexander Dzigurski is best known for his dynamic seascapes. He also enjoyed painting mountains, often making trips to the Sierra and the Grand Tetons from his home in Mountain View, California. Alexander was a Slovenian soldier who escaped from the Nazis in WWII. He made his way north to Austria and hid out as a house painter in a Slovenian neighborhood in Vienna. After the war, he made his way to Italy and eventually to America. He often said his paintings were his way to celebrate the freedom he came to know and love in his new adopted home.

Bill Freeman 1927-2013 ... Although both his parents were artists, young Bill Freeman had no intention of following in the family business. He preferred being a cowboy. For twelve years, he worked as a seasonal fire fighter in Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming. He also was a guide and field researcher for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. He made his home in Scottsdale, but would spend his summers in Jackson Hole, WY. He is known for his palette knife paintings and bronze sculptures. Summer Range is an exceptional palette knife painting of Yellowstone's wild bison.

Andreas Roth 1872-1949 ... German artist Andreas Roth did not come to the United States until he was 60 years old in 1932. Having been a successful landscape painter in Germany, he worked hard to establish himself as an artist in Los Angeles. He loved California's towering mountains and fascinating deserts. In the summers, he often visited Banff National Park in Alberta's Canadian Rockies, painting mainly in and around Lake Louise.

But thanks to John Buchanan, the Director of Museums for FAMSF (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco), 2010 was a memorable year. In one year, San Francisco hosted to two marvelous exhibitions from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.

In 2010, The Musee d'Orsay closed for renovations. This made their unparalleled collection of Impressionist and Post Impressionist paintings available for a traveling exhibition. John Buchanan jumped at this opportunity and helped bring these once in a lifetime exhibitions to San Francisco.

Buchanan the served as Director of Museums for six years, a period when the de Young and the Legion of Honor welcomed nearly 12 million visitors, viewing over 100 special exhibitions. His grandest achievement was to bring both the Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musee d'Orsay (May 22-Sep 6, 2010) and the Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Beyond: Post Impressionism Masterpieces from the Musee d'Orsay (Sep 25-Jan 18, 2011) to San Francisco, the only city to have both exhibitions.

He had been a controversial director, focusing on programming a series of exhibitions rather than making acquisitions for the museum. During his tenure, museum membership increased 70% and museum attendance growth was exponential. His tenure as our director of San Francisco's de Young and Legion of Honor museums is and will always be legendary. Sadly, a year later, John Buchanan passed away of cancer at the age of 58 on December 30, 2011.

Below, we revisit some of the paintings which visited San Francisco from the Birth of Impressionism exhibition. The paintings below are displayed roughly based on the approximate date of their creation. Next issue, we will revisit paintings from Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Beyond.

Edouard Manet 1832-1883, The Fifer, 1866 ... The Fifer was not well appreciated when it was first shown. It was rejected by the Paris Salon of 1866. Manet did show The Fifer in his own exhibition located close to the International Exposition in Paris, only to be given dismal reviews by critics. Today, The Fifer is recognized as a bridge between realism and impressionism.

Edgar Degas 1834-1917, Racehorses before the Stands, 1866-68 ... Degas enjoyed painting race track scenes. The 19th century Parisian bourgeoisie frequented race tracks as a fashionable place to mingle with the aristocracy, the place to see and be seen. At the track, Degas did not paint the excitement of a race, but reduced the importance of the subject matter, giving his attention to the silhouettes and shadows of the riders and horses, and the color of their shirts.

Frederic Bazille 1841-1870, Portrait of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1867 ... Bazille was 26 when he painted this portrait of his close friend Renoir. This was a time when young artists could not afford models and they often posed for each other. What's noteworthy here is Bazille's incompleteness, his use of broad brushstrokes possibly hinting to later impressionist techniques

Frederic Bazille, 1841-1870, Family Reunion, 1868 ... Like his friends Renoir and Monet, Bazille liked painting outdors. This portrait of his family, including an depiction of himself on a terrace, is a group portrait and a plein air landscape painting all in one. In 1870 at the age of 28, he enlisted in the French Army to fight in the Franco-Prussian War. He was killed at age 28 on November 28. His officer had been injured, so Bazille took command and lead an assault on a German position. He was hit twice and died on the battlefield.

Claude Monet, 1840-1926, The Magpie, 1868-69 ... During the winter of 1868-69, 29 year old Claude Monet and his wife Camille along with their newborn son were staying in a house in Etretat in Normandy. Monet was fascinated with painting the effects of light on snow and often expressed the difficulties of painting white. The lone Magpie is the small but dominant figure in this painting, sitting prominently on the top of a gate, perched as a musical note written on a staff. The various shades of white and the blues of the shadows contrast notably with the trees. Some advocate that this was Monet's first "true" impressionist painting, being created five years before the movement was called "Impressionism."

Frederic Bazillle, 1841-1870, Frederic Bazile's Studio, 1870 ... This scene done in the Spring of 1870 shows Bazille in the center with a palette in his hand having a conversation with Edouard Manet (wearing a hat) and a friend Edmond Maitre seated at the piano. They are surrounded by works rejected by the Salon by Monet, Renoir, and Bazille himself. They seem to be criticizing the academy while affirming their own vision of art, what later became known as impressionism. In the light of Bazille's death in November of 1870, this painting has taken on greater significance.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 1834-1903, Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1 (Whistler's Mother), 1871 ... Whistler was an American who split his time between London and Paris. He claimed not to be interested in telling narrative stories in his paintings, choosing instead to capture the poetry and mood of his subject and their surrounding. With this sentiment in mind, he titled his paintings using musical terminology, "arrangements or harmonies," stressing their mood rather than the subject. This powerful image of his mother is notable in its austerity and its nearly mono-chromatic palette, dominated by neutral tones.

Jules Lefebvre 1836-1911, Truth, 1870 ... This painting established LeFebvre's reputation for painting nudes. Here, Truth is well and strong, but her health seems diminished by the gloom behind her. It's as if the painting is saying Truth is always a struggle. It is now believed that Frederic Bartholdi, the sculptor of the the Statue of Liberty, was influenced by Lefebvre's Truth. This painting is just over 8 1/2 feet tall.

Berthe Morisot, 1841-1895, The Cradle, 1872 ... Berthe Morisot exhibited with the impressionists in 1874 when she exhibited The Cradle. The painting was barely noticed in the exhibition, although important critics noticed its grace and elegance. When it didn't sell, Morisot withdrew it. It remained in the family until 1930, 35 years after Morisot's death, when it was purchased by the Musee du Louvre.

Edgar Degas, 1834-1917, La Classe de Danse, 1873-76 ... Beyond Degas' painting race horses at the tracks, Degas regularly attended the ballet. A friend who played in the orchestra helped Degas receive permission to visit backstage. He loved painting ballerinas at work in rehearsal or at rest, exploring their posture and gesture. In his ballet paintings, young dancers can be seen exhausted, stretching, straining, and attending to their clothes, hair or jewelry. In La Classe de Danse, the instructor is a portrait of Jules Perrot, a ballet master. Degas shows the floorboards, prominent in the foreground and diminishing into the background. The floor is a major player in this painting, as it is a refined tool of the dancers and the surface onto which the instructor beats the time with his baton.

Gustave Caillebotte, 1848-1894, The Floor Planers, 1875 ... This is a painting of common city workers, members of the proletariat. Unlike country peasants or stone workers, city workers were rarely painted. Caillebotte doesn't add any other social commentary, other than these men busy at their task. Artist studios were designed to make the most of natural light. Here, a future studio floor is being lightened and revarnished.

Caillebotte submitted The Floor Planers for the Salon of 1875 where it was rejected. Judges were shocked by its crude realism. With this rejection, Caillebotte decided to exhibit with the Impressionists.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Swing, 1876 ... The Swing has the feel of being taken by a camera in a moment, a young woman on a swing, surprised by a conversation with the gentleman before her. The scene is observed by another man behind the tree and a little girl. The woman on the swing is looking away, as if embarrassed. The group of four in the foreground is echoed by a quartet of women conversing some distance away. Renoir's goal was to capture the effects of sunlight dappled by shadows cast by the tree. This study of the light and shadow annoyed critics when it was first shown at the Impressionist Exhibition of 1877. The painting did find a buyer though, Gustave Caillebotte who also bought Renoir's The Ball at the Moulin de la Gallette.

Claude Monet, 1840-1926, The Turkeys, 1876 ... This painting was intended as one of four panels depicting summer life at the estate over the four seasons. They were intended for a drawing room of an estate owned by Ernest Hoschede, a prominent department store owner in Paris.

Monet's wife Camille was a close friend of Alice Hoshede. When Camille became ill, the Monets lived with the Hoschede's in Vetheuil. Camille died in 1879. Twelve years later in 1891, Ernest Hoschede died, and Claude Monet married Alice a year later in 1892. Although not known as fact, it is widely conjectured that Alice and Claude were involved earlier.

Claude Monet, 1840-1926, Saint Lazare Station, 1877 ... When Monet painted Saint Lazare Station, he had not yet moved to Giverny. But over the next four and a half decades, Monet would pass through this station many times as he made his way back and forth from Giverny to Paris. In 1877, Parisian art critics were encouraging artists to paint contemporary Paris as it flexed its urban muscle, seeking to capture its new beauty and prestige. Like Manet, Degas and Caillebotte, Monet wanted to be known as a painter of modern life. He asked permission to work in the Gare Saint-Lazare. The movement of trains, and clouds of steam, provided him plenty of the raw material he loved. In Saint Lazare Station, Monet plays with light effects within a modern motif. For Monet, it was all about the light, the huge trains and busy travelers are not featured at all.

Edgar Degas 1834-1917, At the Stock Exchange, 1878-79 ... Degas would much rather have been at the race track or backstage at the ballet than in the Stock Market of Paris. His father had been a failed banker and he knew the world of money and he wanted no part of it. This painting has evocative power. He shows these men of business being about practicing their codes and customs laced with greed, and he doesn't paint them with any nobility. They seem not to be individuals, but as dark men dressed in the dark garments of power. The gentleman in the center is Ernest May (1845-1925.) In this painting, May is only 34 years old, but looks much older. May was one of Degas' patrons.

Alfred Sisley, 1839-1899, Snow at Louveciennes, 1878 ... Unlike Monet, Sisley saw sadness and desolation in nature, reflective of his temperament, more comfortable with mystery and silence. But like Monet, Sisley enjoyed studying the variations of light and painting white in all its different shades. His snow reflects tint of blue and pink rather than being uniformly white. The one small figure gives sense of depth with this snow covered lane with a receding perspective.

William Adolph Bouguereau, 1825-1905 The Birth of Venus, 1879

William Adolph Bouguereau, 1825-1905, The Birth of Venus, 1879 ... This painting is enormous, nearly ten feet high and over 7 feet wide. It demanded attention while at the de Young, both for its size and subject matter.

It depicts the birth Venus, the Roman god of love, beauty and fertility. Venus' Greek counterpart is Aphrodite. Here, Venus rises from the sea on a shell.

What it has in common with the impressionist paintings in this exhibition was never fully explained. Impressionism never had much interest in classic mythology.

Paul Cezanne, 1839-1906, L'Estaque aux toits rouges, 1885 ... L'Estaque is a town just to the north of Marseille on the French Riviera. The rectangular red roofs, the blue distant sea, and the green shrubs and trees framing the scene make this a delight in color and composition. Cezanne was a bridge between early impressionism and cubism. He helped bring art from the 19th to the 20th century. His planes of color and small brushstrokes formed complex fields. He was a major influence on Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. During the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-71, Cezane and his mistress left Paris for L'Estaque. He was declared a draft dodger, but the war ended a month later, and he was able to return to Paris. Picasso called Cezanne "the father of us all" and claimed him to be "my one and only master."

What a wondrous treasure, that these paintings from the Musee d'Orsay were exhibited in San Francisco. And with fondness, we offer our deepest gratitude to the late John Buchanan, then Director of Museums for FAMSF, who brought them to us.

Bentonville, AR
Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art

... IN GRATON, CA ...
Linda Sorensen's studio and our gallery's showroom is located Graton.

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