'Early California Landscape, San Francisco Bay Area' by William Otto Emerson, 1891, Hayward, Academie Julian

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Signed lower left 'Emerson' for William Otto Emerson (American, 1856-1940) and dated 1891. Additionally titled, verso, in graphite on stretcher … Read more Signed lower left 'Emerson' for William Otto Emerson (American, 1856-1940) and dated 1891. Additionally titled, verso, in graphite on stretcher bar '....Autumn Day' with artist sticker and catalogue number.

A celebrated naturalist, author, and field ornithologist, William Emerson arrived in California in 1870 by wagon train from his rural home amid the prairies outside Chicago, Illinois. After spending several years in California's central valley, he moved to San Francisco and enrolled at the recently-formed School of Design (what would become the San Francisco Art Institute) and studied landscape painting under Virgil Williams, co-founder of the San Francisco Art Association. Emerson subsequently traveled to Paris and continued his studies under William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Jules Lefebvre at the Académie Julian. During this time, Emerson also made an extended tour through Holland and produced numerous landscapes of the Dutch countryside.

Returning to California in the late 1870s and settling in Hayward, Emerson befriended Dr. James G Cooper, the acclaimed naturalist and namesake of the Cooper Ornithological Society. Together, they made frequent excursions through the East Bay Area, producing unprecedented field research of local bird populations. Emerson continued to paint during these years and exhibited widely and with success, including at the California Midwinter International Exposition (1894), the California State Fair (1884, 1894, 1895), and the San Francisco Art Association (1893-5).

Emerson devoted the rest of his life to painting landscapes and promoting broader knowledge of Bay Area natural history. He wrote over 60 articles for the San Francisco Chronicle and, toward the end of his life, became increasingly involved as an educator with the Boy Scouts of America. In 1906, Emerson contributed his personal collection of over 5,500 specimens to the California Academy of Sciences, where they remain to this day.

"This collection is doubtless one of the most complete and valuable local collections ever made in California. Mr. Emerson began observing, collecting, and studying the birds of California some forty years ago. He very naturally gave most attention to the birds about his home Palm Cottage, near Hayward, Alameda County, Calif., but his numerous collecting trips, oft repeated, into every part of Alameda County, the fields, the bay shore and salt marshes, the creek bottoms and ponds, the orchards, vineyards and pastures, and the canyons, hills and mountains, gave him an acquaintance with the birds of that part of California probably more intimate than that possessed by any other ornithologist. The collection is therefore particularly complete as to that territory. Many species are represented by very full series of specimens showing the differences in plumage for age, sex, and season. The series of sparrows, grosbeaks and warblers are very full. There are also several "record specimens" for California, among which may be mentioned the Redstart, Slate-colored Junco, Black and White Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, White-throated Sparrow, and Harris's Sparrow."
(Waldo Lee McAtee, from “Notes and News.” The Auk 38, no. 1 (1921): 157–62)

References:
Artists in California 1786-1940, Third Edition, Edan Milton Hughes: Crocker Art Museum, Sheridan Books 2002, Vol. I, page 351; Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Peter Hastings Falk, Sound View Press 1999, Vol. I, page 1042; et al.

With thanks to the Hayward Historical Society. See less