Valley of Gold. Oil on canvas. Signed 'F. Grayson Sayre' lower left. Measures 24.25 in. high x 30.25 in. wide, (with frame 30 in. high x 36 in. wide).

Fred Sayre was born in in Missouri in 1879. He worked in lead and zinc mines and manufactured leather goods before settling on an art career. He was primarily a self-taught artist. His first creative job as an artist was as an employee of an engraving company in Houston, Texas. Sick with diphtheria, he moved to California in 1917. Traveling by train, he was enchanted with the desert of the southwest and vowed to return, which he did in 1919. For three years he worked in Arizona as a bookkeeper for a mining company while painting in his leisure. Upon returning to California in 1922, he soon built a home and studio in Glendale where he remained until his death in 1939. Sayre is one of California's best-known painters of the desert.

Condition: In very good condition.