Robert William Wood (March 4, 1889 – March 14, 1979) was an American landscape painter. He was born in England, emigrated to the United States and rose to prominence in the 1950s with the sales of millions of his color reproductions. He was active in the art colonies of

San Antonio, Texas ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

in the 1930s,

Monterey, California Monterey (; es, Monterrey; Ohlone: ) is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under bo ...

in the 1940s and

Laguna Beach Laguna Beach (; ''Laguna'', Spanish for "Lagoon") is a seaside resort city located in southern Orange County, California, in the United States. It is known for its mild year-round climate, scenic coves, environmental preservation efforts, and a ...

in the 1950s.

Biography

Life and work

Robert William Wood was born in Sandgate,

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England, near the White Cliffs of Dover. His father, W. L. Wood, was a renowned home and church painter who recognized and supported his son's talent. He forced his son to paint by keeping him inside rather than letting him play with his friends. At age 12, Wood entered the South Kensington School of Art in nearby Folkestone. While in school, Wood won four first awards and three second awards for his paintings. After emigrating from England in 1910, he roamed the United States from Maine to California in search of landscape subjects. He eventually settled in

Laguna Beach, California Laguna Beach (; ''Laguna'', Spanish language, Spanish for "Lagoon") is a seaside resort city located in southern Orange County, California, in the United States. It is known for its mild year-round climate, scenic coves, environmental preservat ...

in 1940.

Robert Wood reproductions

Wood's work was widely published by a number of publishers, the most prolific being Donald Bonnist's Donald Art Company, which distributed more than one million copies of ''October Morn'', Wood's most popular print, in less than two years. Wood was at the peak of his fame in the 1950s through 1970s when his scenes of the

Catskill Mountains The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas c ...

in New York, the California coast, the Grand Tetons, the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

, the

Texas Hill Country The Texas Hill Country is a geographic region of Central and South Texas, forming the southeast part of the Edwards Plateau. Given its location, climate, terrain, and vegetation, the Hill Country can be considered the border between the Ameri ...

and the Cascades were most popular. His popularity made him a household name in America. Millions of his reproductions were printed in large editions by a number of publishers. Titles like ''Autumn Bronze'', ''Early Spring'', ''Pine & Birch'', ''Texas Spring'', and ''The Old Mill'' are found in homes across North America.

Studio locations

He lived in rural Ohio; Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; San Antonio, Texas; Monterey, California; Laguna Beach, California; Woodstock, New York; San Diego, California; and Bishop, California. He was a popular exhibitor at the Laguna Art Festival and a Life Member of the Laguna Art Association. He was represented by galleries in Laguna Beach, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Cleveland.

Later life

Wood moved to the

Owens Valley Owens Valley (Numic Numic is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native American peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin, Colorado River basin, Snake River basin, and southern Great Pl ...

Bishop, California Bishop (formerly Bishop Creek) is a city in California, United States. It is the largest populated place and only incorporated city in Inyo County. Bishop is located near the northern end of the Owens Valley, at an elevation of . The city was na ...

in the early 1960s with his wife, the artist Caryl Wood. On a large parcel of land with its own trout pond, they built studios for each of them. While in Bishop, the Woods became friends with landscape painters

Robert Clunie Robert Clunie (June 29, 1895 – November, 1984) was a Scottish-American plein air painter, specializing in California landscape art with a particular focus on the rugged mountain scenery of the High Sierra. Early life Clunie was born in the vi ...

and Richard Coons. The Woods sold the property to move to San Diego, where they restored a Victorian home. After a few years in San Diego, they returned to Bishop, where they purchased a smaller property. Wood died in Bishop at the age of ninety, just a month before a large retrospective exhibition was mounted at the Morseburg Galleries in Los Angeles, by Howard Morseburg and the Newport Beach gallery owner Raymond Hagen.

Productivity

Wood was an extremely facile painter and his artistic production was substantial, in excess of 5,000 completed works. His work is sold at galleries specializing in historic American art and is sold frequently at auction, with his auction record in excess of $40,000.Ask Art reference site lists hundreds of sales with a value of more than $40,000.

Notes

Sources

* Kronquist, Lawrence, Robert Wood, gallery brochure, Laguna Beach, California, 1973 * Gaston, Godfrey, Robert Wood Retrospective, Exhibition Catalog, Morseburg Galleries, Los Angeles, California, 1979 * Morseburg, Jeffrey, Robert Wood Centennial, Exhibition Catalog, Morseburg Galleries, Los Angeles, California, 1989 * Morseburg, Jeffrey, Robert W. Wood (1889–1979), unpublished essay, West Hollywood, California, 2007 * Interview with Howard E. Morseburg (b. 1924), Wood's Los Angeles dealer, Santa Ynez, California, 2010

* Fillmore, Gary, ''Canyon Magic: Landmark Art from the Picerne Collection'', 2010 * Dunbier, Lonnie Pierson (Editor), The Artists Bluebook: 34,000 North American Artists, 2005 * Davenport, Ray ''Davenport's Art Reference: The Gold Edition'', 2005 * Vose, Marcia Latimore (editor), ''Vose Art Notes: A Guide for Collectors'', Winter 2003, Volume XI * Hughes, Edan Milton, ''Artists in California: 1786-1940'' (two volumes), 2002 * Grauer, Michael R and E. Harvey, ''The Eyes of Texas: The Bill and Mary Cheek Collection'', 2001 * Powers, John & Deborah, ''Texas Painters, Sculptors & Graphic Artists: A Biographical Dictionary of Artists in Texas Before 1942'', 2000 * Falk, Peter Hastings (editor), ''Who Was Who in American Art'', 1564-1975, 3 volumes, 1999 * Grauer, Paula and Michael R., ''Dictionary of Texas Artists, 1800–1945'', 1999 * McCann, Chris, ''Master Pieces: The Art History of Jigsaw Puzzles'', 1998 * Southwest Art, ''Red Book Price Guide to Western American Art'', 1997 * Jones Gallery, ''New Beginnings: A Group Exhibition'', 1993 * Southwest Art Magazine, ''The Red Book: Western American Price Index'', 1993 * Steinfeld, Cecilia; William H. Goetzmann (Intro), ''Art for History's Sake The Texas Collection of the Witte Museum'' 1993 * Falk, Peter Hastings, ''Dictionary of Signatures & Monograms'', 1988 * Zellman, Michael David, 300 Years of American Art, (two volumes), 1986 * Dawdy, Doris, ''Artists of the American West:A Biographical Dictionary'' (3 volumes), 1985 * Falk, Peter Hastings (editor), ''Who Was Who in American Art: Artists Active Between 1898-1947'' * Flume, Violet, ''The Last Mountain: The Life of Robert Wood'', 1983 * Schimmel, Julie; Gilbert Tapley, ''Vincent Stark Museum of Art: The Western Collection'', 1978 * Samuels, Peggy and Harold, ''The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West'', 1976 * Museum of Texas Tech University, ''Selections from the Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Fred T. Hogan'', 1974 * Hagen, Raymond, Robert Wood Exhibition, 1970

External links

Website devoted to Robert W. Wood

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, Robert American landscape painters English landscape painters 1889 births 1979 deaths People from Sandgate, Kent 20th-century American painters 20th-century American male artists American male painters British emigrants to the United States