ARTIST: Paul Anton Schmitt (California, 1893 - 1983)
NAME: Landscape - Clarks Fork, Sonora Pass (titled on verso)
MEDIUM: oil on canvas. Canvas applied to board.
CONDITION: Overall good. Very minor craquelure. No visible inpaint under UV light. Wear to frame.
SIGHT SIZE: 10 x 14 inches / 25 x 35 cm
FRAME SIZE: 13 x 17 inches / 33 x 43 cm
SIGNATURE: lower left
CATEGORY: antique vintage painting
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SKU#: 121938
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BIOGRAPHY:
Painter, watercolorist, illustrator and teacher, Paul Schmitt was born in Philadelphia, in 1893 and moved to San Francisco in 1898 where he lived until the 1906 earthquake took his family home. He then moved to the Fruitvale district of Oakland. He died of natural causes at the age of 90 in San Leandro, California.Paul Schmitt studied under Perham Wilhelm Nahl, at the California College of Arts and Crafts. He also learned various crafts, woodworking and carving skills from his father, Herman Schmitt, a German wood carver working in San Francisco. Herman's works are still found in various San Francisco public buildings including the city hall chambers and the garden court of the Palace Hotel.Schmitt joined twelve other local San Francisco artists to form the group called "The Thirteen Watercolorists", a group that eventually evolved into the Society of Western Artists. Their early members included Alfred Owles, Will Cameron, Maurice Logan, Maynard Dixon and many others. Paul worked with engineers and architects doing models of many projects. He was versatile in that he also did illustrations for various publications and advertisers.He fathered thirteen children. In the late 1930's he decided to accept a teaching position in the local adult schools where he retired in his eighties.Paul was very fond of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and yearly took his large family there on camping /sketching trips. He did a series of oils of the California missions. He also traveled extensively on sketching trips including Mexico where he did a series of Mexican churches. His love of the mountains was reminiscent of stories of his ancestral Austria. Many of his best-loved paintings are of mountain scenes. His children include three artists, Mari Matto, of Fremont, CA."Schatz" Robideaux, of San Leandro, CA. and the late Ray Schmitt, of Hayward, Ca.His work was exhibited in several San Francisco galleries, including De Young, and in the Chicago World's Fair, and New York. His murals are in various California churches and public buildings. At present the Oakland Museum California History room has a permanent display of his painting called "Pipe City" which depicts the depression era encampment of homeless people living in large cement pipes in Oakland.