Henry Chapman Ford: Painter of Early California

NOTICIAS Quarterly IVIagazine Of The Santa Barbara Historical Society Occasional Papers, No. 13 i

*i

i

J

Henry Chapman Ford Painter of early California

2007

or scvenh’-Jivc \dirs the Santa Barbara I iLstorical Society has been dedicated to document

/ ing the rich heritage oj the Santa Barbara region, lo celebrate this imj^ortant milestone the A iusewn ivill present during the course oj2007 ci series of exhibits highlighting treasures from the pennanent collections; thejirsL in d}is series is Henry Chapman Ford; Painter ol Early California, hi co)i/unct(a?i with this exhibit ive present this Occasional Paper issue o/Nocicias.

'Ihejirstanist oj'signijicanl stature to call the South Coast homeivas I leui-y Chapman Ford (tdzS-iSgg). Trained in Furope and a master of a number oJ mediums including oil,luatercolor, pen andin!'^ and etching, lard came to California in tSj^ in an attempt to reinvigorate hCfragile health.

Known primarilyfor his landscapes, Ford becamefascinated luith the histoi-y of liLs Jieto home state and eventually detennined to document on canvas, draiving paper, and etching plate Califoniia's twenty-one missions.'Ihe legacy of this ivorhxvould prove an inspiration to Californians zvho banded together at the end ofihe nineteenth centwy in the California Landmarfs Clid-> and life organizations topresei-ve these imposing monuments to Califoniia’s heritage.

In igScj Vie Book Club ofCalifomia published An Artist Records the California Missions, ci portion ofamajorworkon the missioms by Ford, The Mission Era of Calilornia.tc/nc/i the artist never completed. Vie editor ofthe igSg boolg Dr.Nonnan AJeuerburg,ivrote a biographical introduction oj Ford ivhich fonns the basis of this Occasional Paper.

Front coverimageisan iSgo portrait in oil of I leni-y Chapman Ford Iry San TrancLsco poHraitisL, A Ian Cwtis Efchard.son (i8gS-ig^ i). Vie page one pen and inhdraiving of Alission Santa Barbara and the page twenty-four drawing of the Charles T'ernald home ivere executed by I'ordforthe boolg Santa Barbara and Around There, 1886. Back cover image by Ford is the Avenue oj the Palms, Qlen Annie l^nch, Qoleta Valley. All images arcfrom the collections ofthe Santa Barbara Tlistoncal Society unless othenvise noted.

NORMAN NEUERBURG: A noted authority on the architecture and art of the Califoniia mis.sions,.Nonnan.A'euerburg {igib-iggjjreceived his Ph.D. in art historyfrom A\av lorf University.

I !e taught at Indiana University, University oj Southern California, a manberof campwses oj the Uni versity ofCalifornia and Califoniia State University, Dominguez Flills. lie participated inpreseivation and restoration projects at several ofthe missions and at ihe Santa Barbara presidio. I k authored "Painting Mission Santa Barbara,"a histoij ofartistic portrayals ofthe mission,ivhich appeared in the Winter igg6 issue o/Noticias.

© 2007 TIk Santa Barbara Historical Society 136 E. Dc la Guerra Street, Santa Barbara. Calilornia 93101 $^.00

ISSN 0581-5916 Reprinted from .\hticias. Vol.XLIII. No. 2

T 313qi p3UlBUJ3J J311BUI 3qi pUB ‘13B1 -U03 01 lUOq/A AVOUl^ ^ppip I ‘UPS ui idiiDsnuBUi 3qi 3ABq iqSjui AuBduioo 3qi J3A0 1^001 J3A3oqM iBqi AiTpqissod 3qi p3inBUi3J 3J3qi inq ‘i3unj3p /aou sj ss3Uisnq sqjL 'S3|tj s AuBduioo 3qi uj dn p3 'pus 3ABq iqSiui 11 iBqi inq qiB3p s piog jo 3snB03q p3JB3ddB lou pBq 1] iBqi psuinssB \ o^BOiq^) ui 03 7g SjnpDpyj p y jo spuBq 3qi UI SBA^ 11 IBqi pUB ‘SUOISSTUI BIU10n]B3 3qi uo i^ooq b jo iduDsnuBUi b p3iBd3id Suj -ABq s pjog 01 3DU3I3J3J B SSOIDB 3UIBD ISIJJ ] IBqi uinssnpyj is3Avqino5 3qi ui sSuiAtBip piog UBUidBq3 Aiusjq jo uoiios ]od uos -l^DBf lUBJQ 3qi uo 3pilJB UB §UTlBd3ld SBAV J 3pqM SBM IJ SSpBDSp 0A\1 JSqiOUB ISOUI -jB JOJ UIBSb 3J1| AUI J31U3 lOU pip pJOJ 3J3qi Aiisj3Aiun 3qi IB SuiqoB3i SBAV ] 3pqAV 3pisJ3Ayg UI ‘AyjBi 'USppuiOD ‘Amiy uoiiBAjB^ 3qi ib ‘uoissim BJBqjBg BIUB5 JO M31A OTSSBp 3qi ‘SmqDi3 piog isiij Aui psiinboB j piun sspBDsp oam liBAV 01 pBq J ●S3iiisnpuj ipAvpooQ IB iq§noq pBq JoqqSi3u b iBqi (ssuj biub^ puB opuBU '13J UB5) sSuiqOlS OAM 3qi p313AOD J jooqDS qSiq UI 3|jqA\ 'SUOissiui 3qi jo isiiiB SBA\ piog 3UI lOJ pUB ‘SUOISSIUI p]0 3qi qilM p31BUI3SBJ 3UIB03q ISJlJ J IBqi 3UI11 IBqi IB SBM ij puim Aui ui i>[Dnis sSuiqDi3 3qi 3|iqAV ui3qi JO §uiqiou J3qui3Ui3i \ inq ‘squioo 'BIB3 sum 3qi m psABjdstp suoissiui sqi JO sSuiiuiBd siu U33S 3ABq isnui J piog ubui -dBq3 Aju3]-I Aq sSuiqDl3 jo 13S 3qi qii/A p3 'iBiisniii suoissiui BIUJ0JIJB3 3qi uo i3p^ooq B pssBqoind \ 9^.5 j ui 3pisi3Ai-g ui uuj uois 3qi 01 iisiA B SuiinQ ;NoiJ.Dnao'aiNj

pjos J3MopiM J9i| pu^ 'TT6T ‘Z uo p3ip 31^5 vsre pu-BjuSij-^ 3i{] uj ]33ja ^Uiepiv 83T9 p3AI| A3l^D 3J31J/A ‘S3|3 -uy soq 01 BJ-BqjEg ■Eiu^g uiojj p3A0Ui pu^ trBO|5 p3UIEUI ‘U3J3J-J ‘/AOpiM siq f'68T 3uiTi3mo5 "p;5^ ‘93 A|nf uo doq§ >[oog suosmbq jo uos -A\BQ iS3Ujg 01 UB0|5 jq g Aq p|os 3J3M SJB1J31BUI 13qiO pUB idUDSnUBUI 3qi U3qA\ 3jBS JO ijiq jBuisuo 3qi SujpnjDUl ‘si3dBd 1UBA3J3J JO isqiunu B pUB ‘ sSuiqDis 3qi Sui -AuBduiODDB oijojliod |BUlSlJO 3U1 JO 1X31 3qi qi]AV SuojB ‘suoissiui 3qi jo ssmqDisi^s £88T P suoTionpojdsj DiqdBiSoioqd jo 13S B pSUlBiqO J idllDSnUBLU 3qi S3piS3g ●5[33q3 sgsiqsBD B qiiAv q33AV SuiAV0||^ 3qi dn 3q pjnoA^ J Uliq p]01 pUB ‘11 JOJ SUiqSB SBA\ 3q lBqA\ ino punoj ‘3|qB sbav j sb uoos sb 3qiBq j^ p3U0qd3pi I 'AjSlBlpSUlUII SDUBUOduiI SlI p32I|B3J J pUB ‘3UI 01 UO J3113| 3qi p3SSB(5 qD3qujo|-j jojg J3113J B qiiA\ an p3A\o| -|0J U3qi pUB ‘11 ]]3S 01 SuijpAV SBM 3q piBS puB ‘II p3UOiiU3Ui ‘qo3quJOj-j ‘jojg p3uoqd '3pi isjij 3|q ●uoTiS3nb ui idiJOsnuBUi 3qi UAvo 01 psusddBq oqAV ‘A3|py\ ssbjq ui ‘sqiBq pj p3ig jj^ Aq U33s sbav 3|d 'IIJB 3qj_ ‘JSaBd ODSpUBJg UBg b ui SpilJB UB UI p3JB3ddB 3UIBU Siq pUB p3AV3lAJ31Ul SBA\ 'sSpiJqUOJsI ‘AlISJ3AIUfJ 3IBI5 BIUJOJ -IJB3 JO :i^D3quJ0jq piABQ Joss3joJg 'pJBoq A\3U 3qi JO J3qUI3UI 3UQ |BU0I1BUJ31UJ SS3JJ psiiufj 3qi Aq p3Uod3J sbav 1U3A3 3qi ‘3DB]d 1^001 uoiiBiDossy S3ipni5 suois SJJM BIUJ0JIJB3 3qi JO 9uI133UI ]BU011BZ lUBSJo ISJIJ 3qi usqAv ‘P96T AjBnuBf uj

2 these items, as well as others, not on the bill of sale, to Ernest Dawson. According to the bill of sale this one group sold for one hundred dollars in gold coin of the United States. These were among the items that had remained in Ford’s studio at the time of his death and had not been sold in the intervening years.

The list include eiishty large etchings, ninety small etchings, fifty-nine plates for etchings "which incluaes all rights of publication and copyright that may exist regarding said plates and pic tures,’’ fifty large photographs of mis sions of California, scenery, etc., one watercolor painting of San Fernando mission, the manuscript of H. C. Ford’s book. The Mission Era of California, with all rights of publication and copyright, a collection of about seventy-five pencil sketches by Henry Chapman Ford, a col lection of small photographs mostly of California missions, and four copies of the descriptive text relating to the twen ty-four California missions.

Among the pieces not listed are a wash drawing of Santa Barbara mission, about 1860, by Mrs. A.P. Bartlett from the col lection of Henry Chapman Ford, which was bought by George Watson Cole, the first librarian at the Huntington Library, at Dawson’s on December 23. 1911. Some years ago it came into my collection.

More important is a notebook of Ford's, started in 1888, which was bought by Grant Jackson on May 10,1918; he appar ently bought eighty drawings and about thirty-eight etchings, as well as other items not listed at the same time. Inside the cover of the notebook is written "McClurg Pub. Co. has mss history of Missions by Ford." We must assume that McClurg’s decided against the publication and it was returnecl at some point, to Dawson's. No record is available of when the residue of the collection was purchased jointly by Mr. Lathe’s father, Fred A. Lathe, along with W.S. Bliss. An agree ment signed by these two on February 21, 1936, mentions "the Ford Missions, steel engravings, manuscript, excess photos." I had been led to believe that "steel engrav ings” referred to the etching plates and that those had gone to Mr. Kiss. Howev-

NOTICIAS er. in a catalogue entry in 1940 of Daw son’s, it is said that the plates were sold to the Southern Pacific Railroad, though I have been unable to find out if they still have them. A letter of March 9. 1936, to John Henry Nash from James B. Duffy (with a copy to Lathe) of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe refers to the consid eration of the publication of the manu script. Mr. Lathe owned a tool works, but he was also a photographer for the Santa Fe Railway, and he naa a photo studio in San Francisco. The photographs of the etchings that I obtained with the manu script were his work, n 1989 I edited a portion of the manu script which was published by the Book Club of California under the title An Artist I{ccords the California Missions, preced ed by a biographical introduction or which this is an augmented version.^

Henry Chapman Ford was born at Li vonia, Livingston County, in western New York state, on August 6. 1828.^ He was baptized on j^ril 11, 1830, at the First Presbyterian Church of Livonia; he may have gotten his middle name, Chap man, from the Rev. E.S. Chapman, the . Henry's popular minister of the church, parents were Thomas G. Ford and Sally -indsley Ford. She was from Litchfiela, Connecticut, and he was from that state, too. They came to Livonia before 1810.

They ha(i five children. Two girls, Betsey and Nancy, were baptized August 1.

1816. The boys were George Morrison, born in 1819 and baptized N^y 20, 1821, and Henry; the name of the fifth child has not turned up, though the census of 1865 mentions five.^ Sally Ford, the mother, died in 1844 at the age of fifty-four.

Thomas G. Ford remarried, his second wife bein_g Abigail. Abigaail died in 1865.

Thomas tcnen lived with nis daughter Betsey and son-in-law Linus Risden. His daughter Nancy died before he made a will on January 22, 1867, which was pro bated beginning on March 23, 1868. He

HENRY CHAPMAN FORD

would have been eighcy-five years old when he died.*^ An article in The ArtJournal, published in Chicago in March, 1870, tells us of H. C. Ford's early training and career to that year.

EaAy days were spent upon afarm, without much pnvfit to his father, we should judge, for we have heard him say that, often when sent to his work he had found him making chalk butterflies upxm the bam, and the task undone.

Whenever he could steal away,he sought the wildest places of the neighborhood, and many a day was idled away alone in the solitude ofthe forest beside somefa vorite stream. He received an academical education in

3

which were lithographed and sold to subscribers.

While a citizen ofMoline he held several offices oftrust and honor; but politics and art are in compatible, and with disgust he left the former, fully resolved to devote his life henceforth to the latter. Hav ing obtained the means req uisitefor study, in the spring of 1858 he went to Europe, and after a month's mstruction in the studio of C.P. Cranch, then residing in Paris, he entered the galleries of the Louvre and the Lux emburg, and made copies of the works of the most cele brated masters oflandscape, both ancient and modem,in

cluding those of Rysdale, Berghem, Paul Potter, Vernet, Troyon, Achenbach, Diaz, Ziem, and Lambinet.

After remaining two years in I Paris, he visited all the prinhis native village, which, no cipal galleries of the contidoubt, would have been nent, made two sketching more thorough had he not a tours in Switzerland, and strong predilection for covspent some months in Florering his slate and all the If .

Ppme, were he enblank paper within his joyed the society ofmany notreach ivith rough picture Henry Chapman Ford during his Chicago ^d in art, and obtained full fancies. He became infatu- years. Copelin&Sonphotograph. px>rt folios of sketches of the atedxvith some crude paintnumberous [sic] picturesque ings, the work of an itinerant artist, and imporobjects ofinterest which there abound, tuned his father to let the painter give him some Petuming to America in thezvinter of1861, at instruction; but, taking a pjractical view of the a time when the country was convulsed ivith inter matter, he utterly refused to aid him. Receiving no nal dissensions, he remained a short time in New encouragement firm his parents, he resolved to York and then came West;upon the breaking out Leave home, and entered the counting room of a ofhostilities between the North and South enlisted merchant in a neighboring tcrwn to obtain means in the service, and was attached to a brigade that to study art, where he remained until prostrated wasformedfor service in New Mexico, was staby a long and severe illness, which depnived him of tioned at Fort Leavenworth during the winter of thefull use ofhis left arm. i86z,and in thefollowing spning accompanied the Recovering, he sought the wider field of the brigade as far as Fort Riley, where orders for West, andfound employment in the town ofMomarching to Mexico were countermanded and the line, a growing place upon the banks ofthe Misbrigade sent to Mississippi. From thence he foLsissipypi. His natural inclination to imitate form lowed itsfortunes at Pittsburg Landing and Coand color,forced him to leave the deskofthe countrinth to luka,and thence in a series offorced march ing room, andfor afew years his time was divided es across Tennessee and Kentucky to the Ohio, between teaching drawing to small classes and furnishing the illustrated papers occasionally with obtaining views oftowns along the Mississippi, sketches ofarmy life. His health beingseriouslyim-

4 paired, upon the advice ofhis physician he left the army at Louisville, and after recruiting [recover ing?]sufficiently,came to Chicago.

He was thefirst artist that set up an easel in Chicago exclusively devoted to landscape paint ing. Here he remained with rapidly increasing encouragement. His summer studies have, during this time, been made on all the picturesque locali ties of the East, visiting the coast of Maine, the White Hills of New Hampshire, the Qreen Mountains of Vermont, the Adirondacks and Catskills ofNew York, and the Alleghenies and Blue R}dge ofPennsylvania and Virginia. He has given special attention to theforests ofOhio,Penn sylvania and New York, In the summer of1866 he organized a sketch ing excursion to the Rpeky Mountains, and in company with Qookins and Elkins crossed the plains ivith their own conveyance, visiting the parks and mountains of Colorado. From the sketches there obtained several large paintings were executed, the most important being the ''SawatchMountains,"the "Qarden ofthe Qods," purchased by wealthy citizens ofNew York,'Mt Douglas,”the "TwinLakes,"andthe["] Qateway to the Qarden of the Qods" being owned in this city. During the summerjust passed he again xhsited the Colorado, making more extensive tours in the territory than before. Mr. Ford’s chief merit consists in thefidelity with which he copies nature, especially in the views he has given of interior woodland scenery. Some of his late paintings, comprising interiorforest views, are remarkable in both form and color, and display an appreciative sense ofthe beautiful. We look upon this artist as one ofthe most promising ofour landscape paint ers, esteemed as highly.pn account of his artistic powers asfor afine gentlemanly demeanor and genial disposition.

Ford was instrumental in the Chicago Academy of Design, the predecessor of the Art Institute, in 1867. It was formally in corporated in 1869, and Ford held the posi tion of vice-president. His studio was in the Academy building and all the concents were lost in the fire of 1871. He was presi dent in 1873, chough his widow said chat he had been president for many years.

Recently published research on arc ex hibitions in the United States through 1876 gives an excellent panorama of his work.5 His first recorded exhibition was in the Northwestern Fair in Chicago on

NOTICIAS October 27, 1863, where he showed six paintings. Four were from his European years. Lake Leman and the Jungfrau in Switzerland, and a Scene near Florence and the Villa ofPelago in Italy. Pickett Duty on the Missouri was from his army days and the Illinois Prairie Scene would have been done after arriving in Chicago.

In 1865 Ford exhibited four more paintii^s in the Northwestern Fair of that year. Tney included Beech Forest, Ohio; The Qrave ofJohn Broivn;Sunset on the Adirondac; and a View near Qreenbush, N.Y. It was probably on the sketching trip to Ohio that he met Helen Webster Sackfett. whom he married on October 18, 1865, in Mentor, Ohio.^ She would have been twenty-seven years old at the time, hav ing been born April 19, 1838. It is possible that she was a widow, and one source suggests that she had a child, chough if chat is the case the child didn’t survive, as she makes no reference to it in the infor mation she sent to the State Library in Sacramento in 1910.

In June of 1866 he exhibited five paint ings at the Opera House Association in Chicago. Three of these were painted in Pennsylvania and were commented on in the catalogue of the show. One, Spruce Creek, Pd. (Mountain, Stream and Meadow)was said to possess "the rare merit of being full of lignt." Another, View near Tyrone, Pa. elicited the comment, "It would be difficult to find a more delightful landscape than this view on the Moshanon. It is bright, green and sunny.”

In early summer of chat year Ford and his wife, accomipanied by the painters '' Henry Arthur Elkins (1847-84) and James Farrington Gookins (1840-1904^, went on an extended tour to the Rock y Moun tains. spending five months sketching and camping in the parks of Colorado. It was on this crip chat Gookins wrote of a storm near Cottonwood, Nebraska, when Mrs. Ford screamed for her baby who she feared was hurt or lost. This seems to be the only reference to a child connected with the Fords.^ A painting of Summer in the Bpekies, dated 1867, is a work done back in Chicago based on a sketch done the previous summer.^ He returned to Colorado with a group of students, and

HENRY CHAPMAN FORD

5

Even after moving to Santa Barbara,Fordperiodically traveled East topaint Landscapes. This painting,once oumed by Vesta Olmstead,daughterofFord’s closefriend, Stephen Olmstead,prob ably datesfwm the late iSyos.

fellow Chicago ardscs George S. Collins and G.F. Ramsdell. In this period impor tant works resulting from the trip were a Epcky Mountain Scene, The Qaraen of the Qods, and Arkansas Valley.^ In 1868 his tainting of Natural Bridge, Va. was ofered for sale at the Chicago Academy of Design for $1000, while Efchland Woods, Pa. was $500. Also in 1868 a Study from Nature, belonging to G.A. Foster, ap peared in a catalogue of the Utica Arc As sociation.

According to his widow, Ford was particularlyfond ofpainting trees;and, before the fire of i8yi in Chicago, his Forest Interiors had won him good standing as an artist—ranking with the best in our country at that time. His most important painting in oil was an upright ^ i/x x y feet, if1 remanber right, which he painted the year after the fire, and sold to a New York City man named J.J. Hoyt. The picture was called Octohez Woods. Mr. Hoyt also oumed another work of Mr. Ford which was known as The Sycamores and both these paintings were destroyed by fire in the art gallery on Broadway and zyth Street (New York]—I think~where an exhibition was being held in i88x or 1883.

Yda Addis Scorke remarked chat "he was best known as a painter of forest in teriors, nearly his who e time being devot ed CO this class of landscapes. To obtain studies for these, his summer sketching excursions were extended to all the pictu resque mountains of the Northern and Middle States, and to the savannas and cypress swamps of the South, In 1870-71 Ford’s Pichland Woods, Pa. (possibly the same one already shown at the Chicago Academy in 1868) was of fered at the Pittsburgh Art Association, Two. Arkansas Valley (already mentioned as having been done on his crips to the Rocky Mountains) and The Forest Spring were in the Academy’s permanent collec tion, while Skint of the Woods, Sycamores and Birches, and Woods in October were for sale. Those in the permanent collection were surely lost when the great fire of Oc tober 9, 1871 destroyed the Academy and all that was in Ford's studio—his whole life’s work beyond what he had sold, it would seem. We do not know now if his home burned, coo, or any works chat might have been in it.

October Woods and Sycamores were ex-

6 hibited in the 1873 Interstate Industrial Exposition of Chicago, and these would have been the ones bought by Mr. Hoyt.

"An Adirondack Qkn was snown in the 1874 Chicago Interstate Exposition, but by then Ford’s health had begun to deteri orate, and he was advised to seek a change of climate.

In 1875 he showed Fairy Arch, MackF nac and another Sycamores at the Chicago Art Institute, but that year he left for Cal ifornia. In San Francisco at the 8th Exhibi tion of the Art Association he showed Birches and Lindens, one of his eastern works, but sent a Scene near Santa Barba ra, California to the Chicago Industrial Exposition. In 1876, by which time he was already well-settled in Santa Barbara, he showed The Desplaines at Ej.verside in the Chicago Interstate Industrial Exposi tion; Scene in Ohio and View on the I{pck Fiver in Davenport, Iowa, at the Daven port Centennia Exhibition: The Arroya Tuckpiota [sic] and the Santa Inez (sic] Mountains, owned by William Welles Hollister, at the Chicago Academy of De sign; and Silver Cascades, Hayes Moun tain, California at the 9th Exhibition of the San Francisco Art Association. So by then Ford began to show his California work in Chicago, while continuing to show his eastern work in various locations across the country.

The Fords would probably have come by train to San Francisco. While there he did a sketch of Mission Dolores, his first rendering of a California Mission. He may also have examined a set of the pho tographs of mission drawings by Edward Visener,^^ and that may in time have sug gested to him the project of recording the missions. It was probably in San Francisco that they would have met Col. W. W. Hollister^^ and Dr. L. Norton Dimmick,^^ residents of Santa Barbara, who encourged Ford to open studio )1. Hollister may a have beeninintheir San town.

Fran cisco with his wife Annie on a visit to her relatives and perhaps saw Ford’s painting in the Art Association Exhibition. CoL Hollister, like Ford's wife, was a native of Ohio, and both he and Dr. Dimmick were interested in horticulture, as was Ford.

The Fords presumably came by ship to

NOTICIAS

Santa Barbara in the spring or early sum mer of 1875, and he opened a studio in the Odd Fellow’s Building at the southwest corner of State and Haley streets. Upon their arrival the Fords stayed in Carpinteria as guests of Stephen Hart Olmstead and his family.

The family of Mary Fish, who came to be one of Ford’s pupils, was staying with the Olmstead's at the same time.

Ford’s reputation must have preceded him as he was soon welcomed into the community and quickly became part of it as he had in Chicago and. as in Chicago, he was the first artist of stature to estab lish himself in Santa Barbara. A "Library Social” was held in the Odd Fellows’ Building on Friday evening, September 17, 1875, to mark me merging of the Odd Fellows’ Library with the Free Public Li brary. A musical program was followed by tne unveiling of a portrait of Col. Hol lister with an address by the eloquent Dr. J. J. Hough, and dancing from ten to two.

In the hall was a display of "Ford's Oil Sketches of Local Scenery.” There were thirty of these, many of them from the neighborhood of Glen Annie, and the Hollisters’ residence. TTiere were two views of Santa Barbara Mission, one rear view, the ocher "taken from near Judge Freelon’s.”

They are probably the two paintings dat ed 1875 in the collection or the Mission Inn in Riverside. This was the first arc ex hibition in Santa Barbara, anticipating the first one in Los Angeles by at least a doz en years.

Since everyone of importance in Santa Barbara would have been there, his works would have had maximum exposure. Ford quickly became the outstanding artist in town. He did well enough that by Decem ber of that same year he was aole to ac quire a five-acre estate in Carpinteria from Olmstead in exchange for five paint ings.^^ One of the paintings, representing Olmstead's house, is owned by the Wom an’s Club of Carpinteria. Ford intended building a residence and planting out the grounds with every variety of plant and shrub, both native and foreign, that could be grown here. He did just chat, and a de scription. published in the local paper in 1881, describes his remarkable accom-

HENRY CHAPMAN FORD plishmenc after only five years. It was a veritable arboretum, most of it grown without a drop of irrigation. It was laid out with meandering paths and with the various shrubs and trees gathered in fami ly groups. There were numerous trees of all sorts from acacias to sequoias to gingkgos to various palms. There were protaeas and cacti, gardenias, azaleas, ana rhodo dendrons, and over one hundred varieties of roses, though surely these last must have reouired irrigation. Native plants were we 1 represented. Even after Ford’s death the garden continued to be visited by those interested in rare plants.

He shared this interest in plants with both Col. Hollister and Dr. Dimmick, and with John Spence, who arrived in Santa Barbara the same year as Ford. His inter est in plants was not only aesthetic but scientific as well, and he wrote articles in the field. His interest in horticulture must go back to his having been raised on a farm. He also collected shells and fossils and had an interest in geology. He took part in various collecting expeditions in cluding one to Anacapa and others of the Channel Islands.

Ford was one of the founders, in 1876, of the Santa Barbara Society of Natural History and was its president on several occasions. The I{eport of Proceedines ofthe Santa Barbara Society of Natural History, Bulletin No, 1, March, 1887, includes his

7 "Notes on Excavations made in Indian Burial Places in Carpinteria," the account of an excavation carried out on the Olmstead property in 1877. Vol. I. no. 2 of the Society's Bulletin of 1890 includes by him, the "President’s Annual Address for 1889,’’ "Specimens of Coniferous Wood Saturat ed with Bitumen,” "The Indigenous Shrubs of Santa Barbara County,” "Solfataras in the Vicinity of Santa Barbara,” and "The Lyonothamnus Asplenifolius," By him there are also two plates of drawings of "New Shells from the Santa Barbara Channel.” illustrating an article by his friend Lorenzo Gordon Yates^^ who named one of the finds Venus fordii in honor of Ford. In the same issue we also learn that he had donated a painting of his own of the "Grizzly Giant" to the Society.

In 1879 he originated a "Rose Festival” as a compliment to his wife. This led to the formation of the Santa Barbara Horti cultural Society and Ford as its president for a number of years. A photograph of a meeting of the society in the garden of Col. Russel Heath’s house in Carpinteria shows Ford and Olmstead in the fore ground. His interest in scientific subjects for practical purposes is demonstrated by an article encouraging the exploitation of kaolin, discovered in Cathedral Oaks Can yon near Santa Barbara, for a pottery in dustry, something lacking in California at the time.22

' V ●●

The Santa Barbara

f

Horticultural Society held their August 1891 meeting at the Carpinteria Valley home o/Russel Heath.Atcenter foreground stands Ford and to his left, Stephen Olmstead.

At right center, with white beard and watch chain,is Qoleta Valley rancher,Joseph Sexton. I. N. Cook, photograph.

NOTICIAS

Ford executed this rendering ofhis Carpinteria Valley home for Edwards Epberts’bookj Sanca Barbara and Around There, 1886.

The grounds of the home were an horticultu ral showcase.

Ford's nephew, Frank G. Webster, who was born in the new house in Carpinteria in 1882, remarked that it was located on the Old iOl highway near Carpinteria Creek and in his time was known as the Peterson Place. Ford's widow, in fact, sold the property to the Peterson family in 1902; the sice is now occupied by Carpinceria Junior High School, a post office, a real estate office, and some rental units. A photograph taken in 1882 and a drawing^*^ show it to have been a rather charming, rustic-style house, unlike the typical Eastlake or Queen Anne confections so popu lar in that period. Frank's father. George D. Webster, was probably a brother of Ford's wife and must have come out to California after the Fords settled here. The Fords actually moved to Sanca Barbara in the early 1880s, disturbed by the wanton cutting down of the magni/icent oaks of the Carpinteria Valley, Perhaps the Webscers stayed on in the house for a time and helped maintain the garden.

A drawing of the town of Sanca Bar bara and the Santa Ynez Mountains from the end of Stearns Wharf, dated 1876, must be similar to the view that they saw at the time of their arrival the year before. It served as a model for a fine painting done in 1884. Frank Webster’s daughter owns another view of the coast and town taken from Fossil Mound, a landmark sacrificed to the needs of traffic some years ago.25 h is undated. She also has a charming, small oil sketch said to

have been done in Carpinteria with the plain by the sea and a fine rendering of an approaching storm. It, coo, is undated but could be from his early years there. It is Ford at his most spontaneous and freshest.

Ford was frequently on the move. He often went East in connection with shows of his work or for ocher purposes. In the summer of 1876, after their first winter in Sanca Barbara, the Fords went to Philadelphia for the Centennial Exposition. They stopped in Chicago, and he showed his friends there some of his California paint ings. Most notable was a large canvas 4 h by 9 feet showing the harbor of Santa Barbara with the three rocky islands out at sea and the mountainous coast, for a distance of seventy miles above and below the city.26 It showed Sanca Cruz Island in considerable detail. A small painting, dat ed 1881, in a Sanca Barbara collection, shows a similar view with the harbor and Santa Cruz Island taken from the heights behind the mission; a squirrel in the k>reground adds an unexpected humorous touch.

He regularly took sketching excursions to gather materials, and he often camped out for weeks or months at a time. His wife usually brought along their pet owl, which she raised from a chick. In 1878 his brother-in-law, George Webster, cook Ford’s party to Yosemice Valley, and they stayed most of the summer. Others on the trip included his pupil Mary Fish, Mrs.

9

HENRY CHAPMAN FORD Harrison Gray Otis, who had been among the founding members of the Society or Natural History, and the botanist Profes sor Lemmon. Mrs. Otis wrote of her ex periences on the trip in a series of articles over three months in the Santa Barbara Weekly Press.^'^ln another letter she wrote, Our art teacher had been strutting with disease all summer, and had not the strength to climb much and take easel and paints with him. But he had a sort of high-art carnival on Qlacier Point.

He had climbed the steep trail on his mule and taken a pack animal along with painting materi als, blankets and provisions, and camped on the high summit back of Union Point. There he inode his pictures ofthe valley. Jack Prost assailed him while there, pinching and worrying him at night.

But he stood like another Casabianca at this post, and did not leave until he had the valley in minia ture upon his canvas.^^ Two paintings owned by Frank Web ster’s daughter are probably from this trip and one could be che very picture men tioned here. Also a large painting of the valley from Inspiration Point was the cen terpiece of his studio in che Odd Fellows' Building, chough it surely was not done on che spot.

Among others in che valley chat sum mer, chough not specifically a member of

che party, was the photographer Carleton Watkins. This may have been his first meeting with Ford who eventually used a number of his photographs as models for paintings of the missions which had disap peared or were severely modified by remodeling. Most of che fifty large pnotographs that were sold by Sloan were possibly obtained from Watkins.

On the way to Yosemite they visited Mission Santa Inis but apparently did not bother with San Luis Obispo as it was being modernized. On che return crip they spent a night in the mission at San Miguel and were devoured by fleas, a common complaint of so many visitors to Califor nia in che last century. Although Mrs. Otis does not mention it in her account, they also stopped at Mission La Purisima where Ford aid two oil sketches on Sep tember 25, before they arrived back at Santa Barbara.

In these first years in Santa Barbara Ford continued concentrating on land scapes, and a number of paintings dated 1879 in che collection of che Santa Barbara Historical Society ate of such scenes as aviota Pass, Aliso Canyon, Qlen Annie aks, and Tecolote Canyon. In lace Sep tember of 1880 Caroline Wells Dall visit ed Ford's studio and wrote, "We also went CO Mr. Ford's studio to look at some

This evocative etching ofTAission San Fernando Bey de Espana,executed in i88^, attests to the sad state ofdisrepair into which many ofthe California missions hadfallen by the late nineteenth century.

iO

NOTICIAS

incerescing sketches in oil of , the canons and missions. He has a very excellent gallery; without making any wild pre- , tensions, his pictures are nice ly painted, and there are a great number of them. I found it a very pleasant way to make acquaintance with many parts of the coast I shall not v see. Mr. Ford has a fine collec tion of fossils and curios. I coveted innocently some of his fulgurites and moss agates.”^*^ It may have been at this time that she ordered the ^ two small copies of sketches ] of San Luis Rey and ‘San Juan !

Capistrano which are now at i the Smithsonian Institution, r As these are both dated 1881 ; they would have been sent to ;■ Boston the following year.

Three photographs show ' the interior of Ford's studio as i it appeared a few years later. ' The clearer of them shows the Yosemite view and a large Sierra scene to one side in a heavy gilt frame. In front of the Yosemite painting is a K^gg^d Qavwta Pc^s was one of Fc^’s favorite S<^h Coast large ofL Indian sr^jects.

TIus undated features rocky outcropL ® pile ^ L 1 baskets -1 jand pi”.? popularLy known as the IndianmlMead at Left center. there are other baskets piled up ^ ■' elsewhere or decorating the walls. On one wall a Santa Barbara coast wings hung in one spot. In other words it is a ttypical Victorian interior, chough al scene hangs above an organ and there none >or the objects arc props for his own are various Framed pictures under glass, both prints and photograph s it would secures. During the season, he held open seem. In one corner is a stand for viewing louse in the studio on certain days. Ap prints. The other photograph shows the opposite wall with two framed oil paint ings of a stream in the mountains and one in the woods. A small number of etchings of the missions can be seen, and one framed photograph is of the head from the famed painting of Saint Barbara by Palma Vecchio. There are more baskets and oth er curios, and a couple of exotic stuffed birds. And everywhere there are plants, growing in pots, or dried and placed around pictures or fresh flowers in vases.

A number of Manila shawls are in the room, and one wall is partially draped with fish net with a parasol and eagle

parently he did much of his work at lome.

In the summer of 1880 he went south to begin recording the missions in paint ings and drawings. Three dated pencil sketches in the Grant Jackson collection at the Southwest Museum relate to the trip: a view at San Luis Rey on July 13, 1880, a drawing of the asistencia of Pala on July 5, and one of the ruins at San Bernardino on July 8. Other sketches of the same sites in the collection may also belong to this trip.

Oil sketches in tne Mission Inn in Riverside,^^ dated 1880, include San Diego, San Luis Rey, Pala, San Juan Capistrano. San

HENRY CHAPMAN FORD Gabriel, San Fernando, San Buenaventura, San Bernardino, and Santa Margarita.

Paintings dated 1880 of San Diego and San Luis Rey have been on che arc market in recent years and presumably belong to che same group. There are two undated watercolors of San Juan Capistrano which could also have been done on chat trip.

Pencil sketches made in an excursion into Baja California^^ might be from 1880, coo. From chat year there are a pencil drawing of an old adobe at the Salsipuedes ranch in Santa Barbara and a panoramic view, in oils, of Santa Barbara and che bay taken from behind che mission, this latter now in che collection of che Santa Barbara Historical Society.

In che summer of che following year he cook a three months sketching crip north, drawing and painting che missions princi pally but ocher subjects as well. Many of che drawings in the Southwest Museum

11

and a few of che paintings in the Mission Inn are dated to tne precise day. although most of the paintings just have the year. A drawing at El Capitan near Santa Barbara, dated June 18, may mark the start of che trip. He did two cfrawings at La Purisima on June 27. On July 7 he sketched che wooden tower at Mission San Luis Obispo and Avila Landing (Port Harford), che port of San Luis Obispo, On July 17 he drew che rear of San Miguel, and on July 22. he did two drawings at San Antonio. An other view there, now in a private collec tion, is dated July 23. A lost painting of Soledad carried che dace of July 26.

Ford spent about four weeks in the Monterey area. He drew che Presidio Chapel on July 27. did oil sketches at San Carlos (Carmel) on August 1,4,5(Mission Inn Collection), and August 8 (Collection of che Los Angeles Acmecic Club), drew three pencil sketches there (one unfinished)

Fordposes in his studio in the Odd FeLlcrw's Building in Santa Barbara. The room attests to his interest in localflora,fauna, and history. The large canvas ofYosemite Valley at right rear was no doubt inspired by the artist's trip there in i8y8. I A(. Cookp^tograph.

I

12

NOTICIAS

on August 9, then three more pencil sketches in the harbor on August 13, and another three in the city on August 15.

The last painting at Carmel is dated Au gust 21. On August 29 he did two paint ings at Mission San Jose, one copying a photograph by Houscworth, and dated a painting of Sonoma September 10, while a drawing is dated September 11.^^ He referred to these oil paintings done on the spot as "sketches.” iTiey were of ten intended to be the basis for other paintings, not an end in themselves as was the case with works of the so-called pldn air painters of the early decades of this century.

He attempted to keep most of these paintings as models and, rather than sell them, he simply painted replicas for his customers. In 1882 he was asked to do a set of copies of eighteen of the oil sketches for Mrs. John Murray Forbes of Milton, Massachusetts. Mr. Forbes was a rail road executive and a large landholder in Montecito. The paintings were on display in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts from 1883 till her death in 1900, when they were withdrawn. By the terms of her will they were bequeatned to the Public Library in Milton in 1903 and remained there, though long off display, until 1987, when they were sold to a private collector to raise funds for the repair of the library

building. Subsequently they were burned in the Oakland fire of 1991. Other replicas of his oil sketches are known. A San Car los (Carmel), dated 1882, in the Los An geles Athletic Club^^ is the same as the one for Mrs. Forbes, while one in the Dentzel-Waldo collection, dated 1883, copies another view.

These copies are smaller than the origi nals and include less. Also there were some modifications in those of Santa Cla ra and San Jose missions which were sug gested when he saw other old photo graphs than those he had originally used.

Landscape features were moved around or exa^erated in some others, as well.

By this time. Ford’s paintings had elic ited a significant public response and, be ing a good businessman, he decided to ex ploit this while propagandizing the California missions as well, for he had be come an enthusiastic admirer of them. It seems that his first intent was to repro duce the paintings as chromolitho graphs.^^ His acquaintance with Louis N.urz of Kurz and Allison, the wellknown lithographers in Chicago, could have suggested this. He could have known Kurz w^n both were founding members of the Chicago Academy of Design. This plan was abandoned, however, and he de cided to issue them as etchings instead.

So, in 1883 he went to New York to pre-

T(JrjLV

iii£i

HENRY CHAPMAN FORD

y

pare the c(^per places for his monumental Etchings ofthe. Franciscan Missions ofCalifomiaP This was published by the Studio Press, 128 Broadway, New York. A brief text in a letterpress of twenty-eight un bound pages precedes twenty-four etch ings representing twenty of the twentyone missions plus the asistencia of Pala, all printed on Imperial Japan paper.

There are two views of Santa Barbara, one each of old and new La Purisima, and two views of San Carlos (Carmel), one a contemporary view and the ocher a copy of the William Smyche drawing.^® He also mentioned that because of their present state he copied earlier representa tions for some of the missions. Santa Cruz is copied after the 1853 painting by Leon Trousset; San Jose is based on a Houseworth photograph of 1866; San Francisco (Dolores) is copied after a Watkins photo graph; and Santa Clara is copied from a painting of 1851 (not the Watkins photo graphs as he staces).^^ San Luis Obispo also appears to have been copied from a photograph (perhaps Brewster’s of 1874) since nis own sketch of 1881 already shows the new wooden belfry. San Rafael is lacking; he had written Mariano Guada lupe Vallejo from New York for aid but was turned down as a reserve on Vallejo’s material had been promised to Oriana Day. a close friend or his, who was doing

13 her own set of oils in 1882-83.'^® Earlier Vallejo had given a sketch of his own to Vischer who then redrew it in 1878,'^^ so it would not have been among the photo graphs of the drawings that Ford saw in 1875.

During this trip to New York he ap pears to have painted another Forest Interior, perhaps on request. This is the paint ing in the Los Angeles Athletic Club which is signed and dated 1883 and in scribed "New York." He may have done other paintings while he was there as well.

The Grant Jackson Collection has thir teen pencil drawings which are preparato ry drawings for the etchings; four are dat ed '83. The drawing of San Buenaventura is in the collection of the Ventura County Museum of History and Art. Probably Ford made these to take to New York as they would have been considerably less bulky than the oil sketches. They have the same size image as the etchings and certainly were the direct basis for the etchings, The edition was limited to fifty sets and sold for $150, Most of the edition was quickly subscribed. Subsequently, in dividual prints became availabe, both on Japan paper and on heavy etching paper.

With this set Ford hoped to preserve in pictorial form the fast disappearing rem nants of these unique structures. His effort was well received both for the actual re sults and for what he stated had motivated the project, and as a sideline these etch ings and others were a nice regular source oF income. His income from the paintings sold to wealthy eastern visitors and to his friends among the Santa Barbarehos was probably reasonably good. He had good exposure and a large painting of the red woods hung in the lobty of the Arlington Hotel, which was frequented by the richer tourists; it was probably lost in the

Ford beMn to worh more in ivatercolor in his later years. This panoramic view of Santa Barbara's West Beach area features Castle Kpeh. to the left, the Thomas B. Dibblee home on the hill at center, and the adobe atop Burton's Mound at the extreme right. Ford engaged in some artistic license in his rendering ofthe bath houses, at the center.

: NOTICIAS

This 188^ etchingof^vlission San CaHos Borromco deCarmelo was copiedfkm a drawing by Wil liam Smythe. At times Ford based his mission etchings on other wor^s due to the poorcondition of some ofthe missions.

1909 fire which destroyed the hotel. Still, sales would have been erratic so that items which could be sold as souvenirs to the less affluent tourists were desirable. After the

neighborhood. One group of thirteen was available for $4.00 each on Japan paper and $3.00 on etching paper. A group of six in smaller format was available for

1883 series of etchings he did other views of the Santa Barbara mission and of the

$2.50 each on J^an paper, $2.00 on etch ing paper, and for $3.00 could be printed on satin. A front view of Santa Barbara

town and its environs. By this time Ford would have acquired a press and other equipment necessary for making etchings in his own studio in Santa Barbara.

A full page advertisement in the 1888 Santa Barbara City Directory tells us that he offered, "Studies and Paintings of Cali fornia Subjects in Oil and Aquarelle.

Proof-etchings of all the Franciscan Mis sions in folio and single. Etchings of the scenery of the neighborhood including the old aaobe buildings of the Mission and Spanish era. Receptions each Thursday af ternoon during the tourist season." On his business card shown on the same page, he calls himself "landscape artist."

We get an idea or what etchings were available and their prices from a brochure printed between 1888 and 1891. List of Etchings by Henry Chapman Ford On Sate at His Studio, Odd Fellows’Building, Santa Barbara, Calf‘S includes the porTolio at $150(individual prints from it were appar ently not yet available) and a group of ?4iscellaneous Etchings in various price ranges. These include missions, old adobes m anta Barbara, and landscapes in the

mission could be had on Japan paper for $10.00, while a view of the mission's tow er from behind and an interior view of the church at Carmel could be had on Imperial Japanese paper for $5.00 each. These last two carry the date 1888.

Most of Ford’s paintings and etchings are signed H.C. Ford in printed letters or initialed and often are dated to the year or more rarely, even the day. The initials are usually in a monogram. The etchings are normally signed in the plate, and generally the etchings on Japan paper also have a complete written signature in pencil. He used no system of numbering an edition so we have no idea how many copies of an y etching were made. They were prob ably printed as needed, just as he c<^ied his own paintings on order. Many of the drawings have "Work of Henry Chap man Ford” added by him at a later date, and some have a copyright symbol as well. Some of his paintings are unsigned but often have an identification, added by another hand, to back up the attribution.

In 1886 Ford supplied twenty-three il-

HENRY CHAPMAN FORD

15

This charming i88y etching ofthe Santa Barbara mission shows a portion ofthe majordomo'sformer quarters in the right backg^nd.

luscracions for Edwards Roberts’ Santa Barbara and Around Theref^ Some are based on his sketches, others on photoraphs. Three of Rancho Camulos are not y his hand,^® though a fourth, of the bells there, certainly is. Another pencil sketch of this subject was done by him in 1888, and there is a watercolor of the ranch house in the Dentzel-Waldo collec tion.48 7Te view of A Carpenteria (sic] Cottage on page 181 actually represents the home he built there, although he was no longer living. in it at the time the book was piJ)Iished. to A painting, dated 1886, belongir^ the County of Santa Barbara, of an East ern landscape with trees, meanderin stream, and a village with a white churc with its steeple, is a highly finished work, really a salon piece. It would have been painted in his San ta Barbara studio from earlier sketches and demonstrates that he still found a market for Eastern scenes, probably among the more permanent residents a bit nostalgic for "back home.”

His little notebook in the Grant Jackson collection also dates from 1888 and has notes on San Fernando and San Gabriel missions. Pala.

the San Salvador Chapel at Agua Mansa, and three Indian villages in San Diego County, It also includes a list of questions about Santa Barbara mission, suggesting that this was when he began to work on the composing of the book seriously. The final page of the notebook also has a rough pencil drawing of the filter house above me reservoirs at Mission Santa Bar bara. Inserted in the notebook is a folded sheet of another type of paper which car ries references to the watercolors of Vischer which he must finally have been able

Ford was not only interested in the missions, but other historic structures as well. In 1883, he interpreted Santa Barbara's oldest building in oil. Part ofthe Spanish Rp^al Presidio, El Cuartel had served as soldiers quarters.

16

NOTICIAS

to consult, at least in photographs. He notes difference between those and his

etching and celluloid for San Luis Obispo, and the celluloid of San Carlos. From the

own versions. Of special note is a refer ence to the watercolor of Mrs. Bartlett, showing Santa Barbara mission in the 1860s, which he owned.

Also from 1888 is a drawing done at the original site of San Gabriel mission; a sketch of the Agua Mansa Chapel and a pen sketch of an Indian hut at Santa Isabel may have been done at this same time,

same year, but not part of the series, is an etching and celluloid of San Fernando with tne palms in front and a celluloid of the campanario at San Gabriel. Both are vertical in format while the others are hor izontal. A small version of Santa Barbara seen from the side is not represented in the collection. Some of the smaller, such as San Luis Rey, San Luis Obispo, and San Carlos differ from the earlier set while San Diego, San Juan Capistrano, and San Fer nando are totally different. San Gabriel is mainly updated, showing the changes due to the 1887 remodelings.

The celluloids, which did not even merit inclusion on the bill of sale to Daw son's, are important for showing the tech niques of transferring the drawing to the etening plate. There are nineteen in all (plus a bitank). none of them belonging to the 1883 set; he probably did not mink It worthwhile to bring them back from New York. A note inserted with the collection at the Southwest Museum library explains the process according to Berhardt Wall.

"The celluloid plates, tracings from the original pencil sketches, were traced by means of a sharp needle, the line filled with chalk and reversed on the waxcovered copper plate and rubbed off onto the waxed covering. The etcher then used the lines for a guide tracing for drawing on the copper plate, also witn the needle."

Ford continued to do his oil paintings of landscape subjects, but he began to pre fer watercolors in his later years. In the 1887 local Agriculture Fair he won medals both for landscapes in watercolor and for etchings. A particular problem is presentecd by the twentyour watercolors of missions now at the Stanford Museum.^^ They were shown at the World’s Columbian Ex)osition in Chicago in the California building, along with a set of the etchings.'^^ After his death the watercolors were purchased by Mrs. Leland Stan ford and were given by her to the mu seum at the university she had co founded in memory of her son. They were seriously damaged in the destruc tion of that building in the 1906 earth-

TTie next group of etchings belongs to 1891. Continuing his earlier interest in scenery he took a trip to the Pacific Northwest and did drawings and etchings of Mount Hood in Oregon, Shoshone Falls in Idaho, and Multnomah Fall in Wash ington State. There are celluloids for these three and another unidentified landscape among the celluloids (see below) in the col lection. In that same year he also began a second set of mission etchings in a smaller format, but he did not complete it, and it had little circulation,'^® The collection in the Southwest Museum (both from Grant Jackson and George Wharton James, who owned only etchings) includes an etchin; of San Diego, the etching, drawing, an< celluloid for San Luis Rey, the etching and celluloid for San Juan Capistrano, the etch ing and celluloid for San Gabriel, the etch ing and celluloid for San Fernando, the

Among the dravAngs Ford did for the bookj Santa Barbara and Around There, was this study ofthe J.W. CaLkjns home at 1332 Santa Barbara Street.

This rather peculiar Imilding was remodeled in igzi and today is the home ofme University Club.

ifeiit-

1

o.'.ii'M'TiI: L'l/.

●*.1 !li:

HENRY CHAPMAN FORD

The Casa de la Querra zvas Santa Barbara’s social ■, center during the Spanish and Tnexican eras. Ford’s < 1886 etching shows . . the rear oftlw build* ing with the family s dove cote to the left.

quake, and, although an attempt was made to repair them, they remain in condition too poor to merit display. Hiey had been displayed in the Santa Barbara County building in the 1892 California State Fair, where they were said to have been painted from original studies.

In fact, with one exception, they are copies from the early oil studies. They may have been done with the intent of using them as illustrations for the book that Ford was working on so hard at chat time. The one that is not a copy of his own earlier work is that of San Rafael; this appears to have been based on a crude sketch sent to him

by General Vallejo. Thus, that one could not be earlier chan 1888, and all probably were done around then.

Ford must have begun gathering mate rial for a serious study of the missions soon after he came to California, chough he probably didn’t begin serious work on the writbg of the great manuscript until about 1888, theyear of the begmning of the notebook. Tfie handwritten dace on the preface of the final manuscript is Auust, 1893, and that should have been the dace of the completion of the handwritten manuscript. Had the book been published it would have been the first large-scale book on the missions, antedating, as it does, the works of George Wharton James and Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt, O.F.M. , though Fora was not the first artist Ci conceive of such a book. Extensive discus sions of the missions had appeared in the works of Hubert Howe Bancroft in this same period. Ford, in fact, made extensive use of these volumes in preparing the man uscript, and even was given use of Ban-

17

7'

croft’s library. There also have been varbus articles and some small books of rela tively little significance. Most of the latter were excessively sentimental and romantic in their approach, while some of the former were often hostile and biased in their point of view. The merit of Ford's writing is the same as chat of his pictures; it is totally objective, both unsentimental and unbiased. Had the book appeared in the 1890s the whole direction of Mission literature might have been very different in tone, and its influence could only have been salutary.

Already in the 1880s real estate pro moters had begun to cut down the mag nificent oaks which once dotted the Carpinteria Valley so Ford, saddened by this, moved back to Santa Barbara'^^ an<l lived first on Chapala Street and then at 219 East Figueroa; his studio was moved to State and Victoria, in easy walking dis tance, His health must have begun to dete riorate and he finally succumbed to tuber culosis at the age of sixty-five on February 26, 1894. Had he stayed in Chi cago he probably would have died at a much younger age. His funeral was held in the Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara.^^ He was buried in the Santa Barbara Ceme tery in a spot overlooking the sea coward the Channel Islands. With the Santa Ynez Mountains as a backdrop, the cemetery has one of the most spectacular sices for a cemetery of any in the world. Although modest in size. Ford's comb is notewor thy, even unique. On a simple sandstone base with his name and years of birch and death inscribed stands a cast terracotta pillar, unlike any tombstone of the period.

18

NOTICIAS j Fordwas an avid outdoorsman and here hejoins j an expedition to Anacapa Island,ca. i88g. The group included photographer I. N.Cook,third from left, and naturalist Lxnenzo Yates, thirdfrom right. The artist is seated comfortably at center. I. Tv. Cookphotograph.

3

<. .V-» \T

1

^-

B-1

m M0

r

u

rfOJL£

Though now badly deteriorated it was once ornamented with elaborate modeling, and on each of the four faces was a med^lion with the profile of an Indian.

Ford’s wife was buried next to him sev enteen years later. Her tombstone, of a very standard model in marble, carries only the name "Helen” and the dates of her birth and death.

It must have been a great disappoint ment to him not to have seen his book in print before his death. Yet his etchings are an important legacy; it is doubtful that any illustrations of me California missions have been more frequently repToduced than his.^® Ironically, ne would n;ave considered them only a minor part of his total output as an artist, but today his paintings rarely receive more than a brief entry in encyclo pedias of Western Art or an occasional footnote. Nonetheless he was considered an important artist in Chicago before com ing to California and continued to show in galleries in Boston, New York, Philadel phia, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. A careful study, seeking out his paintings throughout the country, might rehabilitate him as a painter o( stature. Generally though, his drawings often show more skill than nis paintings and in the oils the colors tend to he muddy, though that may be due to the chemical makeup of the paints he used as this is characteristic of much paint ing of this time.

He limited himself to landscape and buildings. We find no genre paintings, no portraits, not even any still lifes, though he did draw those shells to illustrate the article

by Yates in the Bulletino{ the Santa Barbara Natural History Society. When human or animal figures do appear in his paintings

they are mercifully kept to a small size and remain totally incidental. Landscape was his forte. The one mural of which we have mention, a panorama of Yosemite Valley, was a temporary affair for an exhibition.

A small wooden plate with some sycamore trees on it was given as a gift to nis pupil Mary Fish and remains in her family, though it is the sort of thing he may have made to sell to the visitors in his studio. and others may exist.

Comments on Ford's work appear in the newsp^er articles of the time, and they are of interest in showing how he was viewed by his public. Ford’s paintings had pride of place in the Art Loan Exhibi tion held in oanta Barbara in February of 1881. It perhaps can be considered Santa Barbara’s debut as a cultural center. The report of the Weekly Press read.

The first painting which fixes our attention is Mr.Ford’s 'Scene in Tecolote Canyon.'Wefound it dijficuU to leave it, andforgot, in our enjoyment, that a description was in order. In the background are sycamores and alders with glimpses ofa blue sky, and an tndefinable gray haze softening the distaTice. In the foreground are trunks of sycamore,festooned ivith blackberry lines, effective in coloring and drooping grace. Pending from the trees are vines ofclematis, and at the left comer a graceful woodwardia. Ah me!Ifonly the stepping stone oftime were as well d^ned as that inimita ble crossing, and ifonly Ufe-shadcnvs were halfso lovely, then were sunshine not the only attraction."

Later on we read, "Mr. Ford's second Tecolote scene would not tempt an anchorite to dip into its cold water;one can almost hear the ripples among thestones.^^ In a subsequent article on the same ex

hibit we find. ”A Quiet Pool," by H.C. Ford is a very lively scenefrom Tecolote Canyon. The reflection ofthe light on the trunks ofthe upright andfallen syca mores, the graceful rendering of clematis and blackberry vines, the shady pool, the stepping

HENRY CHAPMAN FORD

19

sfones, and the haLf<onceaUd pathform a scene of rare beauty. Mr. Ford excels in catching the restfid in a landscape and transferring it to canvas; there is an inexplicable peacefilness about his paintings which endears them to every beholder.

"The Border ofthe Ohio Forest"possesses the same predominant characteristics. The rich colorings of the Virginia creeper are brought out in all their natural beauty, and the beeches and walnuts are os natural as life. The picture is owned by Dr. NT.Dimmick, who abo exhibits two other beautiful paintings from the hand of the same artist.

Mr. Ford's 'Moonlight in Yosemite" attracts much attention, bothfrom the poetry ofits concep tion and thefidelity ofits execution.^^

Another writer commenting on an ex hibit of the Artist’s Club a few years later wrote, "In watercolors, 'The Sycamores,’ and 'Point Lobos’ by Mr. Ford display the work of a master; if we are permitted a criticism of this artist's work, would say that it lacks in chat poetic sentiment that lends such a charm to landscape painting.

As for landscape painting in oil. Mr. Ford exhibits 'A Mission Tower,' 'Chimney Rock,’ 'Carpinteria Beach’ and some re freshing Canyon pictures. In work of this character the artist stands without a rival; his paintings as well as etchings have be come famous as the most authentic of these historic structures,

Ford's work.was an inspiration to the growing movement around the turn ofthe century to pre serve the California mbsions. Flere he paints Mbsion San Buenaventura.J.C. Brewster photograph.

●f

*

"

r*. ■

Obviously Ford cannot be compared with contemporaries of the stature of Al bert Bierstadt or Thomas Moran, but he legitimately can be compared to other painters of missions in California. He nev er met Vischer, who died in 1878, though Vischer, too, had wished to write a book on the missions, but never got to it.^^ Any similarities to Vischer’s work are due to their both using the most logical point of view for a picture. Edwin Deakin ar rived before Ford and outlived him. but his paintings have little documentary val ue in spite of their considerable aesthetic charm, He is often inaccurate in details and distorts proportions. Lemuel Wiles spent two years in California before the arrival of Ford but did not attempt to do a whole series of missions and left before be 65

coming a part of the California scene.

Oriana Day’s set of mission paintings at tempt to delineate the missions as they had originally appeared. She used her good friend M.G. Vallejo as her principal informant, but the results are inaccurate and they have not been well received.

Mrs. Day wished to work on a book about the missions with Vallejo and his son Platon, she doing the illustrations, and they the text, but the project never got beyond the talking stage.

Ford was the only one of the three artists actually to write the book, though it remained unpub lished.

The fortune of Ford’s legacy in his works took a twisted course with some tragedies along the way. He was a prolific producer, but only a portion of his oeuvre las survived. The first major loss was in the 1871 fire in Chicago which destroyed the contents of his studio. Only works chat had already been sold or been given to friends survived that disaster. Then two of the surviving works were de in New York stroyed in a fire in a _ some years later. Ford left a significant body of work to his wife upon his death, not only representations of the missions but ocher subjects as well. The selling of these furnished much of the income for her livelihood. The sale of the watercolors CO Mrs. Leland Stanford right after his death provided a welcome sum for Mrs. Ford. The group of oil sketches chat Ford

20 had made, mostly, in 1880 and 1881 and chat form the basis for his etchings of 1883 had been kept to provide models for numerous copies, such as chose done in 1882 for Mrs. Forbes, chough he eventual ly offered to sell che lot for $5,000. In 1898 Mrs. Ford loaned this collection to che San Francisco Museum in Golden Gate Park and offered to sell ic for $2,000,^® but che city did not cake advantage of che of fer. Inoc long after, she married F.H. Sloan, and they moved to Los Angeles af ter she sold the Carpinceria property to Mr. Peterson. She cook some of the paint ings with her along with the drawings, etchings, copper plates, and che manu script. Ocher works were left in Sanca Barbara at che home of Clancy E. Web ster, a relative, and they were destroyed m 1906 when a fire consumed che house where they were kepc.^^ That was a bad year in general, for others of his works were undoubtedly lost in San Francisco at che time of che earthquake and fire. The paintings sold to Mrs. Stanford were bady damaged in the collapse of che museum at the university in Palo Alto.

Eventually, che group of paintings on loan in San Francisco were taken back, and Ford’s widow was still crying to sell them when she responded to cne query of the State Librarian in 1910. They were al ready at the Mission Inn when she died and were finally purchased by Frank Mill er. During the decline of che inn in che dec ades after World War II che paintings were taken off display and put in irrmroper storage and suffered accordingly. Fortu nately, thoi^h. they have recently been restored by Sotc Haskins of Sanca Barbara in a real tour-de-force of che conserva tionist's arc. Numerous other works have been lost or destroyed through neglect, but many are yet to be rediscovered.

Ford’s widow’s statement chat he was che only artist to do a complete sec of paintings of che missions is obviously in correct, and he was not even che first, but none of his rivals left che same impact he did. His paintings and etchings were cop ied by many ocher artists, both skilled and amateur, and another noted Sanca Barbara artist, Edward Borein, was deep ly influenced by Ford’s mission etchings

NOTICIAS when he sec out to do his own7*^ From the sources ic appears chat Ford was well-liked and a person who inceracced well with ocher people. He was someching of a leader and an organizer, having been a prime mover in che organizacion of che Chicago Academy of De sign, che Sanca Barbara Sociecy of Nacural Hiscory, and che Sanca Barbara Horciculcural Sociecy and one-cime presidenc of che organizacions. He seems to have had good business sense and earned quite a decent living from his painting. He was an appreciator of music, having an organ in his stu dio, chough he may not have played him self. He caught some in Chicago, and he had a number of students in Sanca Barbara in che years when che town changed from a sleepy village into an important health resort. Although the town might have seemed "lost to the world” in a remote re gion. Ford felt chat "in addition to che nac ural attractions of scenery and climate” ic had "educational and social advantages, which are fully equal to che most favored of eastern towns of the same size.”^^ This was not just exaggerated booscerism, as a perusal of the local papers of the time demonstrates.

Ford traveled often, of course, and che winter visitors were an integral part of che local scene. Then, coo, he usually spent summers on excursions to search out new subjects. Curiously, in spice of his great in terest in horticulture, he appears not to have painted pictures of flowers or even scenes in his own notable garden, though examples of such could turn up.

As a painter, Ford lost popularity after he died; seemingly, only his etchings remained well-known. In Sanca Barbara, his position as leading artist was taken over by Alexander Harmer, a much more skillful painter, and one who represented a much more romantic view of early Cali fornia. Ford's impact was more as a pre cursor of che Preservation Movement, He never was actively involved in preserva tion, as such, but he was not afraid to criticize what he considered as vandalism, and he speaks negatively of such unfortu nate remodelings as che Victorian ceiling at San Gabriel, che wooden facing and de struction of original features at San Luis

HENRY CHAPMAN FORD Obispo, and che peaked roof of the church at Carmel. These remodelings cook place subsequent to his first visit to chose mis sions. The California Landmarks Club was established che year of his death, and Charles F, Lummis. its founder, gave cred it to Ford as being among chose who did 72 much "to open che eyes of Californians He was a so an early conservacionist, though his part in that movement is less well-known/'^ It is worth noting that many of those in the forefront of mose eager to appreciate and preserve the missions were of the Protestant faith. These include such names as Helen Hunt Jackson. Charles F. Lummis, George Wharton James, and Ford. He was baptized in the Presbyterian church and buried from an Episcopal church. Like so many Americans of his time, he was brought up and lived as a Protestant, yet his writings on the mis sions are totally free of the anti-Popish bias so typical of nineteenth century America, f^s. Otis, in an article on "The Old Missions,” speaks highly of the work of her friend Ford, then remarks, "Catholi cism and Puritanism commends the work accomplished by those early Mission Fa thers. and comes here to sow and to reap in the soil which they prepared and which they made ready for the larger and grander life of this later centurry...tnere is no page in the past history o:I California that is more eloquent of sacrifice, of patient and devoted endeavor, than these old missions "74 supply ^e attitude shown here is now largely discredited, and even Ford is lumped witn what is now scathingly called the "mis sion myth.” yet, if one truly examines both his pictures and his writing one is hard put to find anything that is romanti cized or other than lactu^.

NOTES i.

Henry Chapman Ford, An Artist Records the California Missions, ed. Norman Neuerburg (San Francisco; The Book Club of California, 1989).

2. The basic faces of Ford's life come from informa tion supplied to the California State Library in Sacramentio in 1910 by his widow and are used without specific citations. Information on his

21 fami^ comes from the Livonia Public Library and Edwin W. Nickerson.

3. Betsey married Linus Risden and Nancy mar ried Meigs C. Fowler. George Morrison married Elizabeth; their child Clarissa Augusta, died July ■4. 1850, at the age of thirteen months while George was away in California, though subsequently he returned East. They had at least four children.

4. At the time of Thomas' death, che Risdens were

5.

6.

in Michigan, though after Betsey's death, Linus returned to Livonia to live with his daughter and son-in-law. Henty and his wife were then living in Chicago. George Morrison was in Charleston. South Carolina, perhaps already widowed, too. He eventually went to Arizona where he died at Clifton on January 5. 1895, age 75 years.

James I. Yarnall and William H. Gerdts, The T^ationaL Afuseum of American Art’s Index to American Art Exhibition Catalogues From the Beginning Through the i8y6 Centennial Year (Boston; G. K. nail & Go., 1986), Vol. 2.

1280-1281; entries 31746-31781.

On their marriage license he is called Harrie C. Ford, and she is Nellie W. Sackecc. They were married by S. B. Webster. G.M., presumably a justice of the peace and perhaps a relative of hers.

7. Robert Taft, Artists and Illustrators of the Old West, 1850-1900 (New York; Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953), 56.

8. Selected California Paintings, Auction Sale 2041P of February 15, 1989, Butterfield & Butterfield, San Francisco and Los Angeles, item no. 2003.

9. Patricia Trenton and Peter H. Hassick. The Rpeky Mountains: A Vision for Artists in the Nineteenth Century (Norman; The University of Oklahoma Press. 1983), 367, note 149.

10. Yda Addis Storke, A Memorial and Biographical History of the Counties of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura, California (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1891). 485486.

11. George Watson Cole, "Missions and Mission Pictures; A Contribution cowards an Iconogra phy of the Franciscan Missions of California."

Publications ofthe California Library Association, Number 11, Handbookand Proceedings of the An nual Meeting, Sacramento. 1910. 44-46, gives the most extensive information on his activities as an artist of the missions. See. especially. 5661 and 64.

12. See Jeanne Van Noscrand. Edward Vischer's Pic torial of the California Missions i86i-i8y8 (San Francisco: Tlie Book Club of California, 1982).

13. J. J. Hollister III, "The Hollister Family." Noticias 34 (Summer 1988).

14. Storke. 532.

15. Verbal communication with Henry M. Brown, a collateral descendant of Mary Fish, 1989.

16. A copy of the program is in che Glcdhill Library of che Santa Barbara Historical Sociecy.

17. Stella Haveriand Rouse. "Olden Days; Eastern Artist Showed West Its Beauty." Santa Barba-

22

NOTICIAS

ra News-Press, 21 July 1963; "Olden Days: Ford Did Many Things Distinctively," Santa Barbara News-Press, 28 July 1963, gives useful information on Ford's life and his place in Santa Barbara, See also Georgia Stockton. La Carpinteria (Carpinteria: The Carpintcria Valley His torical Society. 1960). 52.

18. "The Home of H. C. Ford." Weekly Press(Santa Barbara), 2 July 1881.

19. Victoria Padilla, Southern California Qardens (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Cali fornia Press, 1961), 78. He is referred to as Pro fessor Ford, a title he used as author of various of his scientific articles, but we have no record of an academic profession or degree for him.

20. Scorke, 428-429. Spence arrived in Santa Barba ra the same year as Ford and began an important nursery business. He was active in the local Horticultural Society, where he would have known Ford. Ford's widow presented a drawing of his of the Avenue of the Palms at Glen Annie to Mrs. Spence on Christmas. 1896, but it somehow was returned to her and is now with the other drawings in the Grant jackson collec tion at the Southwest Museum.

21. See Charles L, Can^,"Old Doctor Yates," Jour nal ofthe West 2(October 1963): 377-400. Fig ure 3 shows Ford among Yates and others on an expedition to Anacapa Island.

22. See H. C. Ford, ''Pottery," Weekly Press (Santa Barbar^. 7 May 1881.

23. Frank G, Webster and Nils Hatland. "Notes on Henry Chapman Ford,” Noticias 8 (Winter 1962); 6-7, 24. The photograph of Ford’s home is in the collec tion of the Gledhill Library of the Santa Barbara Historical Society. The drawing is published in Edward Roberts, Santa Barbara and Around 77iere(Boston; Roberts Brothers, 1886), 181.

25. Fossil Mound was located just to the east of where the breakwater of Santa Barbara Harbor joins the mainland. Editor’s conversation with Clifton Smith. 8 May 1997.

26."Ford’s Santa Barbara Pictures." Chicago Times, 6 October 1876; reprinted in Weekly F^s(San ta Barbara), 28 October 1876.

27. Reports in Weekly Press (Santa Barbara). 29 June; 6. 13. 20, 27 July; 3, 10. 17, 24, 31 Au gust; 7. 14, 21. 28 September; 5 October 1878.

28. Eliza A. Otis, California, 'Where Sets the Sun"; Writings in Poetry &Prose(Los Angeles: TimesMirror Co., 1905), 205. Note; edited by Harri son Gray Otis.

29. Peter E. Palmquist. Carleton Watkins, Photogra pher ofthe American West(Albuquerque: Univer sity of New Mexico Press, 1983^ 53, 201.

30. Caroline H. [Wells) Dali, M-v First Holiday;or Letters Homefrom Colorado, Utah and California (Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1886), 181.

31. Cole. 57, speaks of 38 of these still in Ford's widow’s possession in 1910. In her letter to the State librarian she declined to let these be photo graphed as she still hoped to sell them. Twentynine of them had been at the Memorial museum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, but had been withdrawn and were temporarily on dis-

play at the Glenwood Mission Inn in Riverside.

After Ford's widow's death, these were pur chased by Frank Miller, along with nine more.

There are thirty-six there now; two may have or been kept by a member of Miller's family may have been lost. They had deteriorated d adly over the years due to the vicissitudes of that great hostelry but have recently been restored.

Originally all but three were signed, but many have since lost their signatures.

32. Illustrated in Manuel C. Rojo. Historical Notes on Lower California (Los Angeles: Dawson’s Bookshop. 1972), 142. 150.

33. Vernon J. Selfridgc, The NUracU Nlissions (Los Angeles: Grafton Publishing Corporation.

1915), illustrated with Ford etchings then be longing to Judge Geo. H. Hutton, includes four copies, in another hand, of 1881 drawings by Ford of San Juan Bautista, the rear of San Mi guel. the tear of Sonoma, and Pala, 34. Charlotte Berney, "Tlie Return of the Mis sions,” Antiques and Fine Arts, February. 1989, 59-62. The paintings were on display in the ro tunda of the California State Capitol in Sacra mento, January 18 to August 31, 1989. A re print of the article with additional illustrations served as a souvenir catalogue.

35. California's Western Heritage, Palm Springs Desert Museum. 1986. 36-37.

36. Mason, Jesse D., History of Santa Barbara County, California, ivith illustrations and Biographical Sketches ofits Prominent Men and Pio neers (Oakland, Calif,: Thompson & West, 1883), 463. "It is proposed to have them print ed in chromo for general sale."

37. Ebira Feinblatt and Bruce Davis, Los Angeles Prints i88j-ip8o (Los Angeles; County Muscum of Art. 1980), 10-11, remark chat Ford was the first significant etcher in California, The statement that Seymour Hayden was de livering lectures on etching in New York. Phila delphia, and other Eastern cities from 1882 to 1884 suggests the possibility chat Ford might have learned the teennique from him during the stay in New York, Or course, he could nave learned while in Europe a quarter of a century before.

38. Ford gives 1834 as the date of the original view, though Jeanne Van Nostrand. The First Hundred tears of Painting in California, ^775~i8y^ (San Francisco; John Howell—Books, 1980).

211. says chat Smyth, the artist, was in Mon terey in 1826-27. Ford's etching, however, is based on the lithograph in Alexander Forbes. oer and Lower CaliCalifornia: A History of fomia (London: Smith, der & Co.. 1839). rather than on the original watercolor, now in the Peabody Museum in Cambridge. Mass.

39, Arthur Dunning Spearman. The Five Franciscan Churches of Mission Santa Clara 1777-1825 (Palo Alto: The National Press, 1963). frontis piece. There are at least three versions of the painting as well as a lithograph. It is not clear which is original or who is the artist.

40. This information comes from a letter from Ford to Vallejo, dated February 26, 1888. origi-

HENRY CHAPMAN FORD

na] in the De la Guerra Papers, Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library.

41. See Van Nostrand, Vischcr. pi., 41, 42. A number of comments arc quoted in Francis J. Weber, "The California Mission as seen by Henry Chapman Ford," 77ie Pacific Historian 19 (Summer 1975). 101-102, These appeared in a rlycr put out by Ford to advertise tnc portfolio.

Tncre is a copy in the Gledhill Library of the Santa Barbara Historical Society.

43. Webster and Hatland, 7.

44. Copies of this arc in the Gledhill Library of the Santa Barbara Historical Society and the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library.

45. Roberts. The illustrations are the frontispiece and pages 13. 23, 25, 29. 31, 39. 46. 59. 63. 68.

72. 75, 78, 84. 87. 91. 97. 104. 166. 172. 174.

181.

46. Ibid.. 139. 152. 164.

47. Ibid.. 166.

48.

Early Cai^miia I{eflecticms, San Juan Capistrano Regional Library, August 30-Occober 11. 1986. n. 94, iilustracea.

49. See Norman Neuerburg. "PaincingMission San ta Barbara,"TVotidos42(Winter 1996): 73. Ed itor's note.

50. Cole, 60, says only eight of the set were made, as we indicate, 51. Transactions ofthe Nineteenth Agricultural A^ssociation For the Year i88y, composed ofthe County ^Santa Barbara, 848.

52. Larol M. Osborne.Museum Builders in the West: The Stanfords as Collectors and Patrons of Art, i8yo-igo6 ((Stanford. Calif.): University Mu seum of Arc.Stanford University. 198Q.61-62.

53. Final P^eport ofthe California World’s nair Commission ... atthe World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893 (Sacramento; State Office. A. J. Johnston, Supc. State Printing. 1894), 54, 63, Twenty-four watercolors were in the art gallery of the Lalifornia State Building, and 24 etchings were in front of the office of the commissioners, 54. Transactions ofthe California State Agricultural Society During the tear 1802 (Sacramento.

1893), "Santa Barbara County Exhibit.

55. S(amj T, C(lovcr). "Browsing in an old Book Shop,” The Qraphic. 5 August 1911.

56. Verne Linderman. "Arc Study Club Recalls Life and Enthusiasm of Pioneer Artist, Henry Chap man Ford." Santa Barbara News-Press, 23 Fcoruary 1941.

57, Webster. 7.

58. The collection of etchings belonging to Mr. William A. Edwards was published by Edward Selden Spaulding as Etchings of California by Henry Chapman Ford in 1961. Besides the 24 prints of the 1883 set, it includes three more views of Santa Barbara mission of 1887 and 1888 and the 1891 etching of the campanariool San plus cighc miscellaneous etchings in and Gabriel, around Santa Barbara and five of the ulustracions from the Roberts volume. The end papers and vignette on the title page are new drawings made after two of the illustrations in that volume. The oil portrait of Ford is by Mary Curtis Richardson and is in the collection

23 of the Santa Barbara Historical Society; it is dated 1890, She was a prominent San Francisco portrait artist, so the painting may have been done on a visit to that city.

59. See above, note 56.

60. "Art Loan Exhibition." Weekly Press (Santa Barbara), 12 February 1881.

61. Ibid.. 19 Februa^ 1881.

62. Stella Rouse, "^rly Art Club exhibit inspired criticism," Santa Barbara News-Press, 20 April 1985, C-36.

63. Van Nostrand, Vischcr. 38.

64. A volume of photographic reproductions, with out any text, was pub ished by the artist as The Twaity<m Missions of Cal^bmia (Berkeley; [s.n.], 1899). A Qaliery of dabfomia Mission Paintings by Edioin Deahin, edited by Ruth L. Mahood, additional texts by Paul Mills and Donald C. Cutter (Los Angeles: Hie Ward Ritchie Press. 1966), reproduces in color the paintings which the Los Angeles County Mu seum of Natural History now owns. A second set, not all of the same size, is on display at the Santa Barbara Historical Society. Among the isolated paintings of the missions a particularly fine view of San Luis Rey is owned by chat mission. See The West as Art (Palm Springs: Palm Springs Desert Museum, 1982). PI. 42.

65. See Henry Oak,A Visit to the Missions ofSouthem California in February and March, (Los Angeles: Southwest Museum, 1981), 42-43, 81 note 37, illustration of San Juan Capistrano on 43. Five of his paintings were iincluded in the exhibition of Early C<Mfomia Bsfi^ctions, num bers 36-40 in the catalogue; four are illustrated.

66. Elisabeth L. Egenhoff. rdbricos(San Francisco; California Journal of Mines and ueology, 1952), 138-1148, figs. 208-228.

67. Madie Brown Emparan, The Valldos ofCalifor nia (San Francisco: The Gleason Library. Uni versity of San Francisco, 1968). 157, 366.

68, "Paintings of Old Missions." San Francisco Chronicle. 25 April 1898. 9:4.

69. Morning Press(banta Barbara). 5 October 1926.

70. See John Galvin, The Etchings ofEdward Borein: A Catalogs of His Work (San Francisco: John Howell, 1971), figs. 244-246, 250. 253-255.

257. 259, 261. Harold G. Davidson. Edward Borein Cowboy Artist{Garden City. New York: Doubleday 6d Co., 1974), 97. refers to Borein’s intention to do a set of etchings of the 21 mis sions. He etched only ten of them. A compari son of his San Luis Obispo, p, 102. with Ford’s shows chat the point of view is identical, and he even copies Ford’s placement of a horse in the center. Both arc based on an early photograph taken before the mission was ” Victorianized" in the 1870s.

71, Rouse. Santa Barbara News-Press. 28 July 1963.

72. Charles Lummis. "In the Lion's Den." Out West. February 1904. 192.

73. Stella Havcrland Rouse. "Olden Days: Ford Also Was An Early Conservationist," Santa BarbaraNews-Press.6 March 1966.

74. Otis. 214.

y#

' ●*

●3K0U vuvauva vxkvs y _ a; .-;

7^’»Jpy

■-

-

ii-

'i Mil'll/'-

-mm

tiv

^■A

’hd

*

●● %>●>'

.1 I

-

li

●●■ m ,

-Sfii

■—1. ‘-V fc Li

.'-.wi?,;

I?;?

m\

JfL.

>*

%

<7

1 ●'

■

N '

■/jt.

^1

m. '\

●*c . vr:

N

m4

f

>

yi ^

f*

''v;

i5ii

A

S5? ●^4 r

.<!

;?j^

t‘

V

'5'^VV

'W

t?

j^AoAArys \\^\DWU^

SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL SOCIETY 2007 BOARD OF TRUSTEES President 1st Vice President 2nd Vice President Treasurer

Edgar L. Sands Eleanor Van Core Richard Glenn John W Hunt jean Smith Goodrich

Secretary

Daniel Alef Garrison E. Bielcn

Besty Lewis Tom Miclko Marlene R. Miller

Barbara Briggs-Anderson Leslie S. Bernstein

John J. Mitchell III Stefani Taliaferro Diane Waterhouse

Jon S. Bull Marilyn Chandler DeYoung Donald Fuhrer

2006 MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS PATRONS ($25,000 and above) V K. Atkins. Jr. Charles & Patricia Cleek Lawcrencc & Astrid Hammett

Peregrine Galleries James & Marlene Vitanza Michael Towbes

Jane Rich Mueller

Alice Tweed Tuohy Foundation

Eleanor Van Cott Jo Beth Van Gelderen Volencine Family Foundation

PRESIDENT’S CIRCLE ($10,000 TO $24,999) Terry & Barbara Briggs-Anderson Philip & Leslie Bernstein Sandy Coombs Liselotte Kuttler Estate

John Moran. Incorporated Antique & Fine Arts Auctioneers

Santa Barbara County Arts Commission Ruth Brooks Scollin

Mary Louise Riley

BENEFACTORS ($5,000 TO $9,999) Michael Dolas Heloise B. Power

The Towbes Foundation Kent & Nancy Wood

'Die Santa Barbara Historical Society 01

136 E. De la Quenn Street, Santa Barbara, California gy,i

Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Santa Barbara California Permit No. 534

NOTICIAS Quarterly Magazine of the Santa Barbara Historical Society 136 E. Dc la Guerra Street Santa Barbara. California 93101

Address Service Requested

CONTENTS Pg, 1: Henry Chapman Ford. Painter