Francis John McComas
(1875 - 1938)
Mountain reflections
Oil on panel
Signed in pencil, verso: Francis McComas
6" H x 8.5" W
Provenance: Schussler Bros. Art Dealers San Francisco, CA

Other Notes: Born in Tasmania in 1875, Francis John McComas was just 15 when he enrolled as an art student at Sydney Technical College. At 23, he made his way to San Francisco, via Hawaii and Samoa, by working as a merchant seaman. In San Francisco, he studied with Arthur Mathews at the Mark Hopkins Institute (now the San Francisco Art Institute). Not long after that, McComas traveled to Paris to study at the Academie Julian, and so began a life full of both domestic and international travel during which he established a broad range of important artistic and social connections that would serve him well. McComas loved to travel, study, and even exhibit abroad, however, he always eventually returned to his homes in the San Francisco / Monterey / Carmel area of California, which is where he died in 1938 at the age of 63.

McComas is today best known for his Tonalist-style renditions of Northern California and Southwestern land- and seascapes executed in either watercolor or oil, such as the small but very striking work offered here. His artistry was acknowledged quite early by a gallerist in California. Vickeryis in San Francisco hosted a solo exhibition of his works in 1902, at which point he was not yet 30. A decade later, together with Arthur Putnam and Mary Foote, McComas was one of only three California artists invited to participate in the pivotal 1913 Armory show in New York City. Two years later, while also serving as a jury member, he was awarded a bronze medal for one of his ten entries at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. McComas eventually expanded his skills to include mural-sized pieces, many of which he painted on commission for the homes of his wealthy friends. This may have helped him to get noticed by Cecil B. DeMille, who hired him in 1923 to design the sets for his epic film, "The Ten Commandments."

It is rather ironic that someone who seems to have become such a jet-setter (even meeting both Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco in Mexico in the 1930s), could have left his artistic mark with works as serene as this view of distant mountains painted on a small wood panel. Francis McComas' Tonalist paintings "...emphasized simplicity and stillness with visually meditative imagery. [His] practice of minimizing compositions down to the simplest formal elements anticipated early abstraction by a decade. McComas blurs Post-Impressionist and modernist styles in a way that is unique to this region." (Karen Crews Hendon, Curator, in the introduction to her museum's exhibition, "Monterey Modernism at the Monterey Museum of Art," April 6 - June 17, 2012).

Visual: Overall good condition.

Blacklight: No evidence of restoration.

Frame: 7.75" H x 10.25" W x 0.75" D Condition reports are offered as a courtesy and are typically published in Moran's catalogue or can be made available upon request. The absence of a condition report does not imply that an item is free from defects or restoration, nor does a reference to particular defects imply the absence of others. Buyers are responsible for determining to their own satisfaction the true nature and condition of any lot prior to bidding. Though buyers are not legally required to inspect lots prior to purchase, failure to do so may constitute a waiver of complaint that an item was not delivered in a condition equal to the existent condition at the auction.