Complete Catalog of Paintings: page 3
Southern California Desert Painter
Born in Germany, as a teenager Eytel learned of the Old American West, and became so obsessed with its legends that he immigrated to the US in 1885, settling in Southern California in 1898. While working as a ranch hand in the San Joaquin Valley, he began making forays into the Mojave and Colorado deserts often accompanied on these adventures by his friend the painter Jimmy Swinnerton. Artist of the Colorado desert, Eytel was particularly fascinated with scenes of the desert in the evening, in moonlight and especially mirage scenes. There is a colored plate of a painting of a mirage by Eytel in George Wharton James's "Wonders of the Colorado Desert" which Eytel illustrated for the author in 1906. A shy and sensitive man, born into a wealthy family, Eytel lived in poverty in Banning near Palm springs until his death in 1925.
D018-MIRAGE ON DESERT
Oil on canvas, 12 x 24"
Signed lower right: C Eytel
Date: c1906
Inscribed verso: E. W. James Coll./Mirage on Desert/421-G-1692
Provenance: George Wharton James Collection
San Diego Painter, Etcher
Born in New York, Farnham studied art at the Munich Academy and, with Frank Duveneck, at the Royal Academy of Bavaria. Active as a professional portrait painter in Buffalo, he exhibited widely, settling in San Diego, California in 1886. A pioneer San Diego artist, Farnham's oeuvre includes portraits, figures and atmospheric landscapes in oils and watercolors often painted in late afternoon and depicting luminous twilights with a rising moon.
Complete Catalog of Paintings: page four
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