**First Time At Auction**

Will Sparks (American, 1862-1937). Untitled (probably Old Monterey) oil on canvas, ca. late 19th century. Signed in red at lower right. A picturesque landscape painting by Will Sparks that features a Spanish mission in California (perhaps in Monterey) on a verdant hill with blue skies above at twilight. Interestingly, following the secularization of the mission system by the Mexican government in 1834, the missions dramatically deteriorated. Inspired by a nostalgia for Old California, Sparks was among the artists who painted these time-worn missions. According to Julianne Burton-Carbajal, curator of "Missions of Will Sparks" at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum, "The images created by these early artists and their contemporaries influenced the first movements to preserve and restore the missions." Size (painting): 22.5" L x 18" W (57.2 cm x 45.7 cm) Size (frame): 27.25" L x 23.375" W (69.2 cm x 59.4 cm)

About the artist: Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1862, Will Sparks demonstrated artistic talent during childhood and enrolled at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts. He then went to New York and Paris where he attended the Academie Julian and Colarossi where he studied with Jean-Leon Gerome, Henri-Joseph Harpignies and William Adolphe Bouguereau. Upon returning to the US, he traveled across the country and settled in San Francisco in 1888. Sparks lived in California for the rest of his life and was best known for paintings of missions, nocturnal adobe scenes, and tonalist landscapes.

Brief artist biography from Crocker Art Museum: "Painter, etcher, and muralist, Will Sparks became one of California's premier artists, known for his mission and nocturnal adobe scenes. He was highly prolific, completing about three-thousand oil paintings.

He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and showed art talent as a youngster, selling his first painting when he was age twelve. He became a doctor, but his love of art prevailed. He attended the St. Louis School of Fine Arts and then went to New York and then Paris to the Academies Julian and Colarossi where he studied with Gerome, Harpignies, and Bouguereau. In Paris he earned money as an assistant to biologist Louis Pasteur for whom he made anatomical drawings. He was also much influenced by the Barbizon painters and Cezanne.

He returned to St. Louis and in 1886 exhibited in the St. Louis Expo where he met Mark Twain whose stories of California inspired him to head West. He stayed briefly in Cincinnati and Denver and then California, where he did newspaper illustrations in Stockton and Fresno.

In 1891, he settled in San Francisco, establishing a studio at 163 Sutter Street. He combined illustration work and writing for the San Francisco Evening Call with easel painting including all of the California missions. He was a member of the Bohemian Club, a free-spirited, fun loving group that lived "hand-to-mouth" for their art.

He also painted in Arizona, and a painting Tucson was done in 1894.

In 1904, he joined the faculty of the University of California, doing anatomy drawings for medical classes, and in 1907, he was a founder of the Del Monte Art Gallery. He died in San Francisco on March 30, 1937.

His paintings are in the collections of the Huntington Library in San Marino and the Crocker Museum in Sacramento. (Source: Edan Hughes, Artists in California, 1786-1940)"

Please note: The pigments of this painting have been tested via x-ray flourescence and are consistent with those of the 19th century.

Provenance: private southern California, USA collection, acquired before 2000

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#178398

Painting has been professionally conserved. Wonderful craquelure throughout that was stabilized when the painting was professionally conserved. Age wear to edges of canvas that is attached to stretchers with old nails. Mounted in a beautiful gold tone frame. Verso of canvas shows darkening and wear commensurate with age. "1900" handwritten in black on stretcher. Age wear and stains on stretchers as shown. Fit with suspension wire. The pigments of this painting have been tested via x-ray flourescence and are consistent with those of the 19th century.