GEORGE INNESS and the San Francisco art world in the 1890s - painter

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 2000 by Alfred C. Harrison Jr.

George Inness (Fig. 1) was a leading American landscape painter whose volatile personality caused him difficulties even as it made him seem "artistic" to observers of the American cultural scene in the late nineteenth century. [1] He was at one moment a generous supporter of his fellow artists and at an another an egotist with a patronizing attitude toward those of lesser reputation. He was intimately involved with marketing his paintings but was quick to spurn lucrative deals when the client offended him. He was arrogant in his opinions about art, but so insecure when contemplating his finished works that he often repainted them--again and again.

Inness visited California for about three months in the spring of 1891, during which time he exhibited many of these contradictions. It was his first excursion to the West Coast, although he had contemplated the trip for many years.

P1. I. California (also entitled In California), by George Inness, 1894. Signed and dated "G. Inness 1894" at lower left. Oil on canvas, 60 by 48 inches. Oakland Museum of California, gift of the estate of Helen Hathaway White and the Women's Board.

Fig. 1. George Inness (1825-1894) in a photograph of c. 1894 from Works by George Inness: The Collection of Mrs. Jonathan Scott Hartley, sale catalogue. American Art Association, New York, March 24, 1927, p.8.

Fig. 2. William Keith (1838-1911) in his studio in a photograph of c. 1887. Inscribed "for Dear Bertha/Wm Keith" at lower left. Hearst Art Gallery Saint Mary's College of California, Moraga, gift of Brother F. Cornelius Braeg FSC.

As early as in 1876 he told a reporter for the Boston Evening Transcript that he was planning a trip west. [2]

In 1891 the San Francisco art world was starting to emerge from a decade long decline. Among the active collectors were Ethel Speny Crocker (Mrs. William Henry Crocker; 1863-1934), the first to bring French impressionist paintings to the city and Irving Murray Scott (1837-1903), the president of the Union Iron Works and the owner of a substantial collection of European and American paintings.

In the 1870s two important paintings by Inness had been offered for sale in San Francisco, and although neither found a buyer they received extensive press coverage. These were The Homestead (P1. II), which was Inness's major submission to the National Academy of Design exhibition in New York City in 1877 and was later sent to the Morris, Schwab and Company gallery in San Francisco. The critic for the San Francisco Chronicle called it "exquisite in drawing, coloring, perspective and all that tends to realism." [3] The second painting was Pine Grove of the Barberini Villa (P1. III), included in the spring exhibition of the San Francisco Art Association in 1879. The Chronicle critic was less kind to this work, pointing out that "the faces and figures are daubs of paint, and the trees resolve themselves into rough, shapeless masses of color as you approach the canvas." [4]

The blurring of details in Pine Grove was part of the transition in Inness's work away from the detailed transcriptions of the Hudson River school toward the aesthetic of the French Barbizon school. As time went on Inness increasingly painted works more closely resembling the landscapes of Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867) and Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Pena (1807-1876) rather than those painted by artists of the Hudson River school.

The same transformation is evident in the work of the prominent San Francisco landscape painter William Keith (Fig. 2), who shared his studio with Inness during his visit. Keith's major paintings of the 1870s (see P1. IV) often depict sublime mountain scenery in the Hudson River school aesthetic but with a looser, French touch in the foreground. By the time Keith sent a number of paintings for exhibition in Chicago in 1889 he demonstrated a Barbizon-inspired preference for humble subjects, broad open foregrounds, roughly painted trees, and tonalities dominated by one or two colors, usually green or brown (see Pl. V).

Working separately Keith and Inness had arrived at the same destination, so much so that the critic for the Chicago Inter Ocean claimed that Keith's landscapes showed the influence of Inness. [5] The two artists had not met at the time, yet Inness himself, during a visit to Chicago in 1889, was reported to have praised Keith's landscapes for their "poetry...that appealed to the higher intellect." [6] This exposure to Keith's work may have been a factor in Inness's decision to visit San Francisco, knowing he had a kindred spirit on the West Coast. [7]

The first stop on Inness's California itinerary was the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, where he registered with his wife, Elizabeth, and a granddaughter, Rose Hartley, on February 15, 1891. [8] He may next have gone to the Raymond Hotel in Pasadena [9] before continuing on to San Francisco, where they took rooms at the Palace Hotel on March 12, according to the San Francisco Daily Alta California of March 13. On March 21 the Wave, a San Francisco social and cultural weekly, reported that Inness had been in town for three days the previous week and had met Keith, who had invited him to share his studio for the duration of his visit. The same article noted that the two artists had gone to the Hotel Del Monte in Monterey--a fact confirmed by the hotel's records, which show that the Innesses registered on March 14 and Keith on March l6. [10] Their presence at the hotel was noted by the weekly Monterey Cypress in the issue of March 21: "Wm Kieth [sic], the celebrated scenic painter and Mr. Ines [sic], of New Je rsey, considered one of the best landscape painters in the world" were among the prominent guests in the hotel. The article noted that "Both are taking views in this vicinity."