Works on Paper

Walter Van der Ven

1884-1923

Theme/Style – Modernism, Belle Époque, posters

Media – Lithography, collotype printing, photoengraving

Artistic Focus – Belgian artist Walter Van der Ven was born in 1884. He operated Walter Van der Ven & Co., doing photoengraving and color printing in Antwerp between 1910 and 1914. He is best known for designing the official poster to promote the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium (“Anvers” in French), though some references credit Martha van Kuyck (born 1881) as the creator of the poster and Walter Van der Ven as the “sketcher.” The poster features a monumental discus thrower (after a 19th century sculpture by Matthias Kessels) above the city of Antwerp, festooned with swirls of cloth representing the national flags of the competing nations. Van der Ven’s design actually dates to 1914, when it was used as the cover of a brochure to entice the Olympic Committee to hold the 1920 Games in Antwerp. When Antwerp was chosen, the Games organizers decided to use Van der Ven’s design as the event’s official poster. Walter Van der Ven passed away in 1923. His short lifespan no doubt contributed to the scarcity of his other artworks today.

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Kenneth Sawyer

1896-1960

Theme/Style – Commercial art, illustration

Media – Watercolors, drawings, prints

Artistic Focus – Kenneth Sawyer is best known for his skillful work as the advertising artist for San Francisco’s 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. His maps, posters and panoramic views of the GGIE captured the scope and beauty of the event and remain collector’s items. Sawyer later had a successful career as a commercial illustrator and Hollywood movie poster artist, creating dramatic and colorful advertising images for numerous 1950s-era westerns and horror films.

Career Highlights –

Kenneth Sawyer was born in Oklahoma in 1896.
Sawyer lived in San Francisco, California during the 1920s and early 1930s, and by the late 1930s he was working in the city as a commercial artist.
Sawyer was the Art Manager in the department of Promotion and Publicity for the Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) on San Francisco’s Treasure Island in 1939. In this capacity he rendered many views and maps of the GGIE for postcards and posters published by the H.S. Crocker Company and others.
Sawyer’s rendering of Ralph Stackpole’s monumental Pacifica sculpture at the GGIE was on the cover of the Standard Oil Bulletin published by the Standard Oil Company of California in 1939.
Sawyer moved to Los Angeles around 1939-1940 and continued to work as a commercial artist, creating advertising art as well as illustrations for Automobile Club of Southern California publications and Sunset magazine.
During the 1950s, Sawyer worked as an illustrator for film studios in Los Angeles, producing “key art” (the main image for a movie’s marketing campaign) for westerns, romances and monster movies.
In 1959, Sawyer’s original 1939 watercolor of Stackpole’s Pacifica was donated by Standard Oil to the city of Pacifica, California to hang in its city hall and serve as the basis for the design of the city’s seal.
Kenneth Sawyer passed away in Oakland, California in 1960.

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Anna Althea Hills

1882-1930

Theme/Style – Post-Impressionism, plein air, landscape, figurative work, interiors, genre scenes

Media – Oils, watercolors

Artistic Focus – Anna Hills’s appreciation of the sunshine and open countryside of Southern California is reflected in her thoughtful and vibrant plein air depictions of mountain, coastal and desert scenes. She is also remembered for her immense contributions to the development of the Laguna Beach Art Association, and she remains a prominent figure in the art history of Southern California.

Career Highlights –

Anna Althea Hills was born in Ravenna, Ohio in 1882. She studied art at Michigan’s Olivet College and then at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1902. She received a diploma from Cooper Union in New York in 1908, winning awards in oil painting, watercolor and still life as a student there; and also studied with Arthur Wesley Dow in Ipswich, Massachusetts. She then returned to Olivet to teach art before finishing her art training at the Académie Julian in Paris, and staying on in Europe for several years to paint in France, the Netherlands and England.
Upon her return to the U.S. in 1913, Hills lived in Los Angeles, and had solo shows at the Kanst Galleries in 1913, 1914, and 1916.
By 1914 Hills had settled permanently in Laguna Beach, which she had often visited on sketching trips. She exhibited in the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego in 1915, winning a bronze medal, and also painted scenes of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.
Hills exhibited with the California Art Club in 1914-1916 and the San Francisco Art Association in 1916; and won another bronze medal at the California State Fair in Sacramento in 1919.
She also continued to exhibit in Los Angeles, with solo shows at the Ebell Club in 1918, and the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art in 1919 and 1924. She also exhibited with the Artists of Southern California at Los Angeles’s Exposition Park in 1920.
Hills was very active in the art community in Laguna Beach, teaching painting from her studio and playing a major role in organizing the Laguna Beach Art Association in 1918. She exhibited with the group often, winning their Landscape Prize in 1922 and 1923. A six-time president of the Association, Hills was instrumental in establishing the group’s first gallery in 1929.
Despite a disabling spinal injury, Hills was extremely energetic and adventurous, taking trips into remote mountain areas to sketch. She was also fond of the desert and during the winter months would often stay in towns such as Banning and Hemet, trekking into the surrounding countryside to draw.
Hills was a member of the Chicago Galleries Association, and was included in their annual spring exhibition in 1930, and also exhibited with the Washington Water Color Club in Washington, DC.
Anna Hills passed away in Laguna Beach in 1930. As a testament to her stature not just as an artist but as a revered citizen of her community, the city’s businesses were closed during her funeral, and the many artists who attended the service sat together in tribute. In 1931 a bronze plaque in her memory was unveiled at the Laguna Art Museum, and a hall at the city’s Community Presbyterian Church bears her name.

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Simon Vanderlaan

1904 – 1986

Theme/Style – Figurative art, landscapes, still lifes

Media – Oils, drawings, graphic work

Artistic Focus – Simon Vanderlaan was primarily a commercial artist and illustrator, whose sought-after artwork – including “pinup” images of seductive women – appeared in advertisements, calendars and album covers. However, his artistic range extended well beyond these subjects to striking, award-winning graphic work in posters, as well as original paintings and drawings, many of which he never chose to exhibit during his lifetime.

Career Highlights –

Simon (“Si”) Vanderlaan was born in Muskegon, Michigan in 1904. In the 1920s he moved to Chicago, where he studied at The Art Institute of Chicago, and created theater posters for theaters in both Chicago and Grand Rapids, Michigan.
He moved to Los Angeles in 1933, pursuing further study there at the Art Center School (now the ArtCenter College of Design) and the Chouinard Art Institute.
Vanderlaan designed a poster for San Francisco’s Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939, and took prizes in poster contests for the Institute of Foreign Travel in 1936, the Advertising Club of Los Angeles in 1939, and for New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1941.
He then began working as a commercial artist, including work for Walt Disney Productions from 1940 to 1945.
From the late 1940s, Vanderlaan worked as a self-employed advertising illustrator and also taught art at Woodbury College in Burbank for nearly 20 years.
Vanderlaan exhibited and won awards for his paintings and graphic art in shows for the Traditional Artists’ Association at the National Orange Show Fine Arts Gallery in San Bernardino in 1972, and the San Gabriel Fine Arts Association in 1973.
Simon Vanderlaan passed away in Los Angeles in 1986. A very private man, Vanderlaan had kept most of his original artwork in storage, and more has become available since his passing.

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Cornelius Sampson

1907-1978

Theme/Style – Modernism, murals, posters, industrial design, commercial art, illustration, portraits

Media – Oils, watercolors, sculpture, drawings, etchings

Artistic Focus – Cornelius Sampson founded a renowned design and commercial art firm in San Francisco, through which he became world-famous as a designer of public structures and interiors. His success in this field stemmed from his talent for strong composition and visual impact, equally evident in his early work in graphic design and poster creation.

Career Highlights –

Cornelius (“Neil”) Cogswell Sampson was born in Billings, Montana in 1907, on a ranch near the Crow reservation. He began painting on his own, and then attended The Art Institute of Chicago, earning his tuition as a caricaturist on Lake Michigan’s excursion boats and driving cattle between his native Montana and Chicago.
Sampson then worked as a commercial artist, and his drawings appeared in syndicated newspaper columns throughout the Midwest.
Sampson moved west to California as an artist for the Works Progress Administration during the mid-1930s, painting murals at Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps throughout the state.
By 1937 Sampson had a studio in San Francisco, and was included in the San Francisco Art Association’s first annual exhibition of prints and drawings at the San Francisco Museum of Art.
In 1938 Sampson painted a mural for the iconic Black Cat Café in San Francisco’s bohemian North Beach neighborhood, reportedly in exchange for his bar tab. Informally-titled “The Regulars,” the mural depicted noted denizens of the café, including artists such as Hilaire Hiler.
Sampson served as art director for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition on San Francisco’s Treasure Island, and also designed posters for the exposition.
Sampson then devoted himself to his San Francisco commercial art and design firm, Cornelius Sampson & Associates, and famously designed the original Safeway “S” as well as logos for Chevron and C&H Sugar, and also store interiors and municipal facilities, including a fire hydrant that won an award from the Industrial Design Society of America.
Sampson won the California Governor’s Design Award in 1966, and his designs were exhibited in shows worldwide, including the exhibition “California Design X” at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1968.
Sampson continued to create his own etchings, paintings and sculptures which he displayed locally in shows such as the Berkeley Art Festival during the 1960s. His 1938 mural from the Black Cat Café was later owned by North Beach restaurateur Henri Lenoir. In a 1972 interview Lenoir commented that it was his favorite of all the artworks in his collection, and he was in the process of identifying the circa 50 artists and other “Regulars” portrayed in the painting.
Cornelius Sampson passed away in Berkeley, California in 1970. In 1984 his work was included in a historical exhibition at the Montgomery Washington Tower in San Francisco with other artists including Ralph Stackpole, Emmy Lou Packard, Edith Hamlin, and Ralph Chessé. His design work is in the collections of the Oakland Museum of California and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

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Miguel Covarrubias

1904-1957

Theme/Style – Modernism, figurative art, illustration, political cartoons and caricatures

Media – Oils, gouache, watercolor, lithography

Artistic Focus – Miguel Covarrubias, revered in Mexico as one of the country’s most important 20th-century artists as well as one of a small group of Mexican artists who were well-known in the U.S. during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, had a unique artistic sensibility that was informed by his passionate interest in ethnography, archaeology, and cultural diversity. A master of color technique and the use of gouache, Covarrubias created dramatic figurative works as well as murals, illustrations, and sophisticated political caricatures; and as a dedicated humanist he made important contributions to anthropological history through his scholarly written work.

Career Highlights –

Born José Miguel Covarrubias Duclaud in Mexico City in 1904, Miguel Covarrubias attended the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, and after graduating at the age of 14 he started producing caricatures and illustrations for the Mexican Ministry of Public Education, and also drew maps for his father, who was a civil engineer.
Covarrubias moved to New York City at the age of 19 on a grant from the Mexican government, and was welcomed into the city’s literary and cultural elite (known as the “Smart Set”) as he soon gained recognition as an illustrator for Vogue, the New Yorker, and Vanity Fair. Inspired by the Harlem Renaissance, Covarrubias’s Art Deco-like caricatures and depictions of musical night spots helped define the Jazz Age, and brought black culture into mainstream American consciousness.
He also designed sets and costumes for the theater, including La Revue Negre starring Josephine Baker, and illustrated works by Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and W.C. Handy, among others.
Covarrubias and dancer/choreographer Rosa Rolanda became a couple, and traveled together extensively in the mid to late 1920s, including a trip to Mexico with Tina Modotti and Edward Weston, where they visited with Covarrubias’s close friend Diego Rivera, and Weston taught Rosa photography.
In 1931, Covarrubias exhibited paintings at the Valentine Gallery in New York and drawings with Peter Arno at Gump’s Gallery in San Francisco.
Covarrubias’s growing interest in cultural anthropology took him and Rosa, now married, to Bali; and again accompanied by Rosa, Covarrubias returned to Southeast Asia in 1933 as a Guggenheim fellow. His research of the Balinese culture resulted in his acclaimed book Island of Bali, published in 1937, which was illustrated with his artworks and Rosa’s photographs.
He exhibited in a print show with the American Artists Group at the Weyhe Gallery in New York in 1936, along with Conrad Buff, Ernest Fiene, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and others.
Covarrubias painted six murals for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) in San Francisco, collectively titled “The Pageant of the Pacific.” Displayed in the exposition’s Pacific House, the murals were detailed maps depicting native life in the Pacific Basin. Reproduction prints of the murals were issued in a portfolio, and are said to have had the largest sale of any fine art prints in America to that date. In 1943 the original mural panels were deposited on loan at the Museum of Natural History in New York.
Covarrubias returned to Mexico City in the early 1940s, where he continued to paint, illustrate and write, publishing Mexico South: The Isthmus of Tehuantepec in 1946 and The Eagle, the Jaguar, and the Serpent: Indian Art of the Americas in 1954. His home, Tizapán, would become a hub for visitors from around the world, including Dolores del Rio and Nelson Rockefeller.
Covarrubias became an expert on the ancient Olmec civilization, taught ethnology at the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, and was appointed artistic director at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, where his focus was the research and preservation of traditional Mexican dance forms.
Miguel Covarrubias passed away in Mexico City in 1957. In 1959 his GGIE mural panels were donated to San Francisco’s World Trade Club by the trustees of Pacific House. Five mural panels were restored and installed in the city’s Ferry Building (the sixth panel’s whereabouts are unknown); but in 2001 they were again put into storage when the space was renovated. In 2006 the murals were loaned to Mexico City’s National Museum of Anthropology and other venues, and on their return to San Francisco one panel entitled “The Fauna and Flora of the Pacific” was placed on extended loan with the de Young Museum in 2008.

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