'California Coast' by William Gaw, Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute Chicago, California School of Fine Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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Estate stamped, lower left, 'Wm. A. Gaw' for William Alexander Gaw (American, 1891-1973) and painted circa 1935.

William Alexander Gaw … Read more Estate stamped, lower left, 'Wm. A. Gaw' for William Alexander Gaw (American, 1891-1973) and painted circa 1935.

William Alexander Gaw was born in San Francisco to an artistic family and attended the San Francisco Art Institute where he studied under the landscape painter James Martin Griffin. By 1923, Gaw had settled permanently in Berkeley where he became a fixture in the art community. A noted educator, he taught at the California School of Fine Art and later served as Chairman of the Art department at Mills College in Oakland, California (1942-1957). Gaw exhibited widely and with success including at the Corcoran Gallery (1939, 1941, 1949), Oakland Art Gallery (1932) Maxwell Gallery (San Francisco, solo), The Museum of Modern Art (1933), the Art Institute of Chicago (1936), the San Francisco Art Association (1916-24), the California Palace of Legion of Honor (1932, 1945-46, 1949, 1951-52), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1935, award) and at the New York's World Fair (1939) and other prominent national institutions. He was a member of the Bay Region Art Association, the San Francisco Art Association (Director, 1937) and the Bohemian Club. William Alexander Gaw's work is held in the collections of numerous public museums including the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Art, SFMOMA, the Oakland Museum, Mills College and the San Diego Museum of Art, among others.

Partial List of Exhibitions:
60th Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition of the San Francisco Art Association at the San Francisco Museum of Art, 1940
61st Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition of the San Francisco Art Association at the San Francisco Museum of Art, 1941
62nd Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition of the San Francisco Art Association at the San Francisco Museum of Art, 1942
65th Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition of the San Francisco Art Association at the San Francisco Museum of Art, 1945
First Spring Annual Exhibition, California Palace of The Legion of Honor 1946
Third Annual Exhibition of Painting, California Palace of The Legion of Honor 1949
Fifth Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Painting, California Palace of Legion of Honor 1952;
The Oakland Museum, California. A Period of Exploration: San Francisco 1945-1950; 1973

Reference:
Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Peter Hastings Falk, Sound View Press 1999, Vol. 2, p. 1253-1254;Artists in California 1786-1940, Third Edition, Edan Milton Hughes: Crocker Art Museum, Sheridan Books 2002, Vol. 1, p. 419; Mallett’s Index of Artists, Daniel Trowbridge Mallett, Peter Smith: New York 1948 Edition, R.R. Bowker Company 1935, p. 154; et al. See less