biografia di Arthur Frank MATHEWS (1860-1945)

Birth place: Markesan, WI

Death place: San Francisco, CA

Addresses: San Fran., CA

Profession: Painter, teacher, craftsperson, muralist

Studied: Helen Tanner Brodt; architecture with his father; San Fran. School Design with Virgil Williams; Acad. Julian, Paris with Boulanger and Lefebvre, c.1885-89; Holland.

Exhibited: Paris Expo., 1889, 1898; Paris Salon, 1887-89, 1898; SNBA, 1899; Chicago World's Fair, 1893; Calif. Midwinter Expo, 1894; PPE, 1915; Mark Hopkins Inst., 1897-98; AIA, 1925 (gold); Oakland Mus., 1985.

Member: Phila. AC; Bohemian Cl.; San Fran. AA

Work: MMA; Oakland AM; murals, Oakland Libr.; Calif. State Capitol Bldg (cycle of 12 panels on the history of Calif.); Univ. Calif. Libr.; Libr., Stanford Univ.; Masonic Temple, San Fran.; Curran Theatre, San Fran.

Comments: A Tonalist landscape painter and a designer, he was the most influential artist in San Francisco at the turn of the century through his art, teaching and writing. With his wife, Lucia, he popularized the "California Decorative Style" of the Arts & Crafts Movement through their magazine, Philopolis and their gallery, "Furniture Shop," from 1906. Their chief decorative motifs--flowers and plants native to Calif., especially the poppy-- were carved and painted on the furniture they made and sold from their shop. Positions: teacher/director, Calif. School Design, 1889-1906.

Sources: WW40; Harvey L. Jones, Mathews: Masterpieces of the California Decorative Style (exh. cat., Oakland Mus., 1985); Hughes, Artists in California, 360-361; Fink, American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons, 369-70; Baigell, Dictionary, 225; 300 Years of American Art, 553.