Napoleon Primo Vallejo was born when California became a state, and he grew with it.
As a young man, he saw the influence of the transcontinental railroad, and in late middle age, he saw the devestation of '06 quake, and the resurrection of modern San Francisco.
He is the son of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo and his wife Benicia, and was born in "La Casa Grande," part of the Sonoma mission, and grew up in "Lachryma Montis," (tears of the Mountain) the family home in Sonoma. "Napoleon's Cottage," was built "out back" for him by his father when he was 15. It still stands at the Sonoma State Historic Park. He had a passion for the out of doors, the subject of most of his paintings. In the last years of his life, he worked to document his family's history, and had some of his work published in the San Francisco Chronicle in the early 1920's. Napoleon Primo Vallejo died in 1923.
