Selden Connor Gile was an important member of the early northern California school of art, he was a founding member of the artist group that called themselves the Society of Six. He was born in Stow, Maine on March 20, 1877, and after attending business college in Maine, Gile moved to California in 1901. He was a payroll master in Lincoln and in Oakland after 1905 for Gladding McBean Company. His art studies were under Perham Nahl, Frank Van Sloun, Spencer Macky, William H. Clapp, and at the California College of Arts and Crafts. Prior to 1914, he painted in the manner of classical California landscape painters such as William Keith. After that time he assumed the palette and style of Impressionism-Fauvism, but remained an "individualist" in his mode of expressing the California scene. During the 1920s, he became the dominant figure in a group of painters known as the Society of Six. The Six were active in the San Francisco Bay area and exhibited regularly at the Oakland Art Gallery. In 1927 Gile moved across the Golden Gate to Tiburon and, shortly thereafter, to a houseboat in Belvedere. He died in San Rafael, California on June 8, 1947.

Painter, illustrator. Born in Cincinnati, OH on Feb. 14, 1889. Baldwin moved to southern California in 1911 and had homes in Montrose and Carlsbad. He studied painting locally with Jean Mannheim, Paul Lauritz, and George Demont Otis. While on the staff of the Southwest Museum from 1933-41, he illustrated the books Gypsum Cave and Navajo Weaving. Baldwin died in Oceanside, CA on July 3, 1961. Member: Painters & Sculptors of LA; Carlsbad-Oceanside Art Club. Exh: Eagle Rock Artists, 1931. In: Southwest Museum (LA). Eagle Rock Sentinel, 10-2-1931; CA&A; AAA 1933; Sam; SCA; AAW; WWAA 1938-62; WWPC 1951.

Born in Braunschweig, Germany on Aug. 16, 1839. Schafer may have studied art in Düsseldorf since his paintings resemble those of other Düsseldorf-trained artists; however, he is believed to have been self-taught. He came to the U.S. in 1876 and arrived in San Francisco in 1880. After establishing a studio, he began exhibiting regularly with the local art association and the Mechanics' Institute Fairs. A peripatetic painter, he made regular sketching trips throughout the Northwest including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. During his last years he painted theatrical scenery in San Francisco and Oakland theaters. Schafer had a home in Oakland from 1880 until his death on July 18, 1927. His landscapes, which often include Indians, were mostly done before 1890 and number about 500. Due to alcoholism, his works are often uneven in quality. Exh: Mechanics' Inst. (SF), 1879-84; Calif. State Fair, 1880, 1894. In: Oakland Museum; Seattle Museum; Monterey Peninsula Museum; Shasta State Historical Monument; Bancroft Library (UC Berkeley); CHS; Crocker Museum; Hoover Inst. (Palo Alto); Museum of Church History & Art (Salt Lake City); Society of Calif. Pioneers; Sonoma Co. Museum (Santa Rosa); Yosemite Museum; Alameda Public Library; Craigdarroch Castle (Victoria, B.C.) Source: Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"

Biography, Carl Oscar Borg, N.A. (American, Born Sweden 1879-1947) Carl Oscar Borg was considered "a major American artist," though he was born in Grinstad, Sweden on March 3, 1879. Borg worked as a seaman and studied art in London before emigrating to New York City in 1902. He moved to California in 1903 and through the patronage of Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, was able to return to Europe for further study in Paris and Rome. Upon his return he taught at the California Art Institute in Los Angeles, and from 1918 to 1924 lived in Santa Barbara where he taught at the School of Arts. The interval years 1924 to 1935 were spent traveling to San Francisco, Los Angeles and the Grand Canyon. The subjects of his paintings included Hopi and Navajo Indians, cowboys, historical scenes, and California landscapes, seascapes and missions. He made three trips to Sweden in the 1930s, and when war broke out in Europe he was forced to remain there for the duration of the war. While in Sweden he had considerable fame and financial success in selling his paintings of Indians and desert scenes to art collectors. After World War II ended, he returned to Santa Barbara where he died on May 8, 1947. Awards: gold medal, St. Louis Exposition, 1904; first prize, Los Angeles Painters Club, 1909; silver medal, Versailles, 1914; first prize, California Art Club, 1915; silver medal, PPIE, 1915; gold and silver medals, Panama-California Exposition, San Diego, 1915; silver medal, Societe des Artistes Francais, 1920; silver medal, Pacific Southwest Exposition, 1928; and others. Major collectors: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey; California State Library; Seattle Art Museum; Library of Congress; de Young Museum; Lowie Museum, University of California, Berkeley; Mills College, Oakland; Oakland Museum; Los Angeles Public Library; Santa Barbara Museum; National Museum of American Art; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle; Gothenburg Ethological Museum, Sweden; Phoenix Museum

A landscape painter and printmaker, he was born in San Francisco, California on July 29, 1884. Todhunter was a pupil of John Stanton and Arthur Mathews at the Mark Hopkins Institute, and Gottardo Piazzoni and Frank Van Sloun at the California School of Fine Arts, followed by study at the Art Students League in New York City. He began his career as an illustrator for Overland Monthly and later worked for the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Call, and Washington (DC) Times. He worked in New York as a commercial artist until 1912, when he returned to San Francisco to become art director for the H. K. McCann Company, a job he was to keep until his retirement in 1949. Todhunter's work includes etchings, lithographs, and landscapes of Marin County and the San Francisco Bay area. He died in his native city on February 11, 1963. Member: Bohemian Club; SWA; AAPL; Marin Society of Artists; SFAA; Calif. Society of Etchers. Exh: Bohemian Club, 1922-63; SFAA from 1922; OGlE, 1939; Society for Sanity in Art, 1940s.

Born in San Francisco to a family of artists, Cuneo studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute with Arthur Mathews, before attending the Academie Colarossi in Paris from 1911-1913. Upon his return to California, Cuneo’s works were well received at the Panama Pacific International Exhibition in 1915, and was involved in every major art exhibition in the San Francisco area from 1916-1939. Also during these years Cuneo was the subject of numerous one-man shows, including those in Rome, Los Angeles, London, and Paris. Called “the Painter of San Francisco,” at the inaugural exhibition of the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1935, Cuneo had the most number of paintings displayed by any early California artist. In that same exhibition, his painting California Hills won the Museum’s Purchase Prize award. A pure impressionist early in his career, Cuneo’s style constantly evolved throughout his life, as he was always seeking and assimilating new methods of representation.