Original painting on canvas over board. Signed by the artist lower right.
Provenance: Kirwin Gallery

Dimensions: Unframed 16" x 21 3/4"
Framed 28 1/2" x 23"

William Keith was the leading artist in San Francisco at the end of the nineteenth century. His combination of artistic genius, business acumen, strong personality and hard work enabled him to build a prestigious reputation and a financially successful career. Although he was best known in California, his achievements were noted in the East Coast newspapers as early as 1872, when he had a studio in Boston for several months and as late as April 1911. Keith's deep love of nature was a common thread throughout his painting career. Two sojourns in Europe had particularly strong effects on Keith's artistic development. In 1869, he left San Francisco for visits to New York and Paris, and art study in Dusseldort, Germany. By the time he returned to San Francisco in 1872 his painting style had changed considerably. His European experience had consisted more of looking at art, talking with artists and painting on his own rather than of a formal art education. Keith's second trip to Europe centered around a stay in Munich in 1883-85. Keith's landscapes after 1885 became looser in brushwork as well as moodier in effect. He seemed to have been influenced more by French Barbizon art, suggesting Daubigny, Corot, and Millet.

In the late 1870's Keith had established his reputation in part as a painter of grand panoramic landscapes, often of the High Sierra and other mountainous country. By the 1890's, Keith, typically, was painting forest glades at sunset, suggesting the spiritual reality that lay beyond the surface forms of nature.