Our gallery has always featured the artworks of Stephen Seymour Thomas, a painter with a long and successful career. He enjoyed the company of fellow artists. There wasn't a day in his life when he was not engaged in art, either creating art, enjoying the art of others, or traveling on an art excursion.

He was born and raised in San Augustine, Texas, not far from the Louisiana border. But, due to the depressed economy in Post Civil War Texas, the family moved to Dallas where railroad construction jobs were available. Thomas' father found work as a bricklayer, but soon entered the business community.

The family moved to a part of Dallas near the State Fairgrounds. On the opening day of the Fair, the Thomas family put on their best clothes and went for a day of fun. The day was special because their 8 year old son Seymour had entered a drawing in a competition. The day is remembered because he won BEST PENCIL DRAWING!

Greatly encouraged by his win, he poured even more energy into his dream of being an artist. The following year he won again. A local paper dubbed him "The Boy Artist of Texas."

The Best Boy Artist of Texas did not remain in Texas for long. Eight years after his first award at the Texas State Fair in 1876, the now 16 year old Seymour Thomas left for New York where he studied at New York's Art Students League. Four years after that at the age of 20, he began studies at the Academie Julian in Paris where he lived and maintained his studio for the next quarter century. While in Paris, he participated in the Paris Salon for twenty consecutive years. He was an avid traveler throughout Europe, and began a magnificent career gaining fame throughout Europe and America.

During his early student days at the Art Students League, William Merritt Chase was his most influential teacher. Young Seymour Thomas emulated Chase's flamboyant style. Soon Seymour Thomas was sporting a top hat and a handsome black beard, along with a newly acquired debonair wardrobe. Another favored teacher was James Carroll Beckwith.

Artistically, Chase had trained in Munich while Beckwith had studied in France. Beckwith's paintings were comparatively more gentle than Chase's, and he specialized in portraiture and genre subjects which Seymour Thomas focused on for much of his career.

Both William Merritt Chase and James Caroll Beckwith encouraged Seymour Thomas to continue his studies in Paris at Academie Julian. Thomas acquired a loan to help pay his expenses, found a tutor to guide him through a five-week-long crash course in French, and bought a second class steamer ticket on the U.S.S. Arizona bound for Liverpool.

With all his money stashed into a money belt beneath his clothing, he set sail. In Liverpool, he transferred to a boat to cross the English Channel and then a train on to Paris. In Paris, his rudimentary French was immediately challenged by fast speaking French natives. Overwhelmed, he focused in improving his French. Soon, French became his second language.

In just his first weeks at the school, a celebrated figure painter and faculty member Jules LeFebvre was on his regular tour of the new students, stopping and critiquing each student's work. As he approached Seymour Thomas' easel, he asked his name and nationality. Then, looking at Thomas' work on his easel, he said in astonishment, "Bon! Une jolie figure!" -- three times -- and insisted in placing Thomas' drawing in the Concour, a monthly competition, an honor which had never yet been given to a foreigner.

At age twenty-four, he had the distinction of being placed in Who's Who in America, due primarily to the success in 1892 of his painting Victime Innocente, a tragic genre war scene of a fallen battlefield nurse.

Then, they visited San Antonio, Seymour Thomas' long anticipated return home to Texas. It was refreshing to see family and old friends after being away for so long, but after knowing life in New York, Paris and London, San Antonio was a bit of a let down. He wrote at the time, "The Country here is like Sleepy Hallow; everything and everybody seems to enjoy the beautiful sunshine -- no one has advanced or progressed, in fact, they seem to have gone backward to me."

In February of 1898, the couple visited San Francisco and then on to Denver, Marquette, Michigan, and St. Louis. In 1899, they returned to Paris. The trip was a success, and Seymour Thomas was now considered an internationally known portrait artist. They soon found a new apartment at 19 Avenue Pasteur. They resumed their participation in Paris social life and Seymour was especially active in associations and exhibitions with other ex patriot American artists.

In 1912, Seymour began working on a portrait of Woodrow Wilson, then governor of New Jersey. It is believed that Governor Wilson's wife suggested Seymour to paint the portrait as she knew him years earlier as a fellow student at the Art Students League in New York.

The day the Governor was to arrive for his first sitting, Helen and Seymour had cleaned their apartment and arranged for an elaborate lunch. Of course, the Governor did not arrive until three. Seymour was nervous, due to the combination of the importance of his client and his late arrival. The first session lasted only three hours, with the Governor leaving at 6:00 p.m.

Seymour continued the portrait with an additional sitting a few days later. To compensate for the governor's busy schedule, Seymour Thomas compromised by using a substitute model wearing one of the Governor's suits. Seymour did not complete the portrait until 1913 when Governor Wilson had become President Wilson. The finished portrait was then placed in the White House.

After 25 years in Paris, Seymour and Helen Thomas returned to America not long before World War I. The couple settled in La Crescenta, CA. There, they established their home where they remained the rest of their lives. Seymour still had clients world wide and continued his travels, but his clients were now more centered in the Los Angeles area.

He still had his passion for travel and was a resident artist for varying periods of time in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Carmel, California, and in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1938, areas where he painted the local landscapes with his unique watercolor and gouache style, and commisioned portraits in oil.

After World War II, Helen and Seymour Thomas welcomed a young couple of new La Crescenta homeowners, Walt Disney artist Joshua Meador and his wife Libby.

Although Seymour Thomas was 43 years older than Joshua Meador, the two hit it off in grand style. Lilbby Meador told us how Helen and Seymour had welcomed them with open arms. Josh was thrilled to learn about Seymour's long career in Paris and his advice on navigating the world of fine art. Conversely, Seymour was curious about Josh's experience with the new art form of animation.

About the same time, the Meadors got to know the family of another famous California artist, Granville Redmond. Redmond died in 1935, the year before the Meadors came to California. But they did get to know Redmond's wife Carrie Ann Jean Redmond (1872-1946) and their daughter, one of three Redmond children. Libby Meador told us that the Meadors met Carrie, but she died about a year after they met. Josh created his oil painting of the Redmonds' house after Carrie's death in 1946.

Currently, Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery has three unique landscape watercolors by S. Seymour Thomas. All are currently on display and are available at the gallery.

For two days (Saturday and Sunday September 28 & 29, 2024, 11am-5pm), the artists of Atelier One will host their OPEN STUDIOS. Linda's studio is #5 on the first floor, 2860 Bowen St., Graton, CA 95444. At least 16 studios participating. See the Atelier One website for details.

Being the wife and a mother of noted artists, Dorothy also painted with canvas and brush. We bought her Lavender Fields of Provence from her at a Dzigurski art exhibition in Carmel in 2006. Alex Dzigurski Gallery

London's Somerset House, home to the famed Courtauld Gallery, reported a fire at noon on Saturday, August 17. Twenty fire engines of the London Fire Brigade (LFB) responded with 125 firemen, including two ladder trucks.

Bentonville, AR
Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art