A Broadside of Mount Tamalpais

William Keith

American

The Scottish-born William Keith moved to San Francisco in 1859 and developed a lifelong passion for the California landscape. He found success painting landscapes for the Northern Pacific Railroad, and these commissions financed travel to Europe to further his art education. On a return trip to San Francisco, Keith befriended the naturalist John Muir. Their remarkable friendship has been called “one of the important cultural transactions of the period in California.”

Born
1838
Died
1911
A Broadside of Mount Tamalpais by William Keith

What makes a landscape memorable?

Mountain scenery was a subject popular with both European and American artists. Keith here depicted Mount Tamalpais, in Marin County, north of San Francisco. When this painting was exhibited in New York, a reviewer for a San Francisco newspaper favorably described the landscape as demonstrating “entire unpretentiousness, freedom from affectation and from strange and startling effects.”

Medium
Oil on canvas
Credit

Museum collection, gift of Mrs. Joseph O. Tobin

Item ID
71.44.4
Dimensions
31 x 47 1/8 in. (78.7 x 119.7 cm)
Date
1870
Country
United States

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Artist name
William Keith
Artwork location
Gallery 26