Charles Arthur Fries Original Vintage Portrait of a Lady Relative Daughter Alice San Diego California American Impressionist Oil Painting
Original vintage Charles Fries oil painting on canvas, portrait of a relative, (his daughter Alice). The painting is signed Fries, lower left, with a notation for the model/his relative. The oil painting measures approximately 14" X 18", plus frame, and is in excellent condition.
Charles Arthur Fries (1854-1940) was an American painter known for his Impressionistic landscape paintings of the deserts and seascapes of southern California. He was active in Cincinnati and San Diego during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Born on August 14, 1854, in Hillsboro, Ohio, Fries was raised in Cincinnati as the seventh of eleven children in the family of John and Martha Fries.
At the age of 18, in 1872, Fries began his apprenticeship as a lithographer at Gibson and Company in Cincinnati. Two years later, he joined the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette as a photographer and lithographer. In the same period, he also attended evening classes at the McMicken School of Design, which later became the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
From 1874 to 1890, Fries worked as an illustrator, photographer, and lithographer for various publications in the Cincinnati area. In 1887, he married Addie Davis, and in 1890, they purchased a small farm in Waitsfield, Vermont, where they resided for six years.
In 1896, Fries, along with Addie and their six-year-old daughter Alice, relocated to California. After a brief stay at Mission San Juan Capistrano, they settled in San Diego in 1897, and Charles remained a resident there for the rest of his life.
Throughout his career, Fries embarked on numerous extended camping trips into the deserts and mountains of southern California, where he sketched and painted many of his notable works.
As the city of San Diego expanded, Fries flourished as an artist, participating in exhibitions across the country, including New York, San Francisco, and Berkeley. He played an active role in the San Diego arts community for many years. In 1918, he co-founded the La Jolla Art Association alongside esteemed San Diego artists like Maurice Braun and Alfred Mitchell. He served as the president of the San Diego Art Guild in 1919 and was a founding member of the Associated Artists of San Diego in 1929.
In 1936, at the age of 82, Fries embarked on his final sketching trip into the mountains east of San Diego. The following year, he participated in the Federal Art Project. Charles Fries passed away at home on December 15, 1940, leaving behind a significant artistic legacy.
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