Arthur Frank Mathews Original Vintage California Plein Air Impressionist American Arts And Crafts Movement Pastel Landscape Painting 1 of 2

Original, vintage, California Plein Air impressionist landscape, by Arthur Frank Mathews. This painting is one of two that we have listed by the artist. This painting is signed, lower left corner, and dated '38, in graphite. Painting is extraordinarily detailed, and shows the high key color palette of the earliest California pastel artists such as Arthur Mathews, his wife and pupil, Lucia Mathews, and Theodore Lukits.

Arthur Frank Mathews, (1860-1945), was considered one of California's premier early painters. He is considered primarily a tonalist painter, and was one of the founders of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Arthur Mathews was born in 1860, in Markesan, Wisconsin. He moved with his family to San Francisco, when he was six years old, in 1866. The young Arthur learned architecture from his father, along with his brothers. He later studied painting at the California School of Design, as an apprentice, under the influence of artist Virgil Macey Williams. In San Francisco, he also worked as a designer and illustrator at a lithography shop. He studied art in Paris at theAcademie Julian; (1885-1889), where he was influenced by the academic classicism of his teachers: Jules Lefebvre, Gustave Boulanger, and the distinct American tonalism style of James Abbot McNeil Whistler; as well as the symbolism of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. This distinct influence of style is highly visible in the artist's works. 

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Mathews taught life classes at the San Francisco Art Students League and the California School of Design. He later became director of the California School of design in 1890; and in 1894, married Lucia Kleinhans, one of his art students. Following the large 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, he and Lucia opened the Furniture Shop in San Francisco. Here he had the flexibility to flourish in the craftsman style painting be became so predominately associated with. He and Lucia designed detailed interior decoration schemes in what became known as the California Decorative Style. Among his many mural commissions was a twelve-panel series in the State Capitol Building, Sacramento. He was not restricted in style, or method, and was a master of fresco, pastel, gouache, and watercolor, as well as oil. His methods were also non restrictive, Arthur and Lucia, created a variety of furniture; stools, and chairs, with gorgeous painted flowers and fresco landscape scenes; painted wood boxes, and carved and painted picture frames, as many other decorative objects; and even large, stained glass windows. This is what would become a huge movement in California Decorative Style, and some of the most beautiful Art Nouveau paintings, anywhere.

Arthur Mathews and his wife, Lucia K. Mathews, would leave an indelible impression upon the California art scene that would last, until this day. Some of his students also became some of the most well known, and respected early California painters of the 19th and 20th Century, including: Xavier Martinez, Armin Hansen, Percy Gray, Gottardo Piazzoni, Granville Redmond, Mary Colter, Maynard Dixon, Rinaldo Cuneo, Ralph Stackpole, and Francis McComas.

Arthur Mathews works are in the following museum collections:
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
New York Metropolitan Museum of Art
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; (Washington, D.C.)
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, (M.H. de Young Memorial Museum)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
San Diego Museum of Art
Oakland Museum of California
Crocker Art Museum; (Sacramento, California)

Arthur Mathews
(1860-1945)
Pastel on paper, attached to board
Impressionist Landscape
California Plein Air
Signed lower left, in graphite, and dated '38
(The most legible part of the signature, due to fading, is "Mathews")
Painting is in very good to excellent original condition, and is behind a double mat and glass, in vintage gallery frame. There is a very slight horizontal pressure line/light line from missing pastel, along the top portion. Back of the gallery paper was removed, (and inside of the glass cleaned from pastel dust), as well as for better images of the signature, and precise measurements. Very bottom edge of the mat has water discoloration, that is far from the actual painting, and does not/has not affected the painting, but should be mentioned for quality assurance.