Robert William Wood (March 4, 1889 – March 14, 1979) was a British-American landscape painter. Although he never became an American citizen, most of his career was in the United States, and he is designated as an "American" artist. He rose to prominence in the 1950s with sales of his color reproductions numbering in the millions.
Early life Robert William Wood was born in Sandgate, Kent, England. His father, W. L. Wood, was a renowned home and church painter who recognized and supported his son's talent. He forced his son to paint by keeping him inside rather than letting him play with his friends. At age 12, Wood entered the South Kensington School of Art (now the Royal College of Art), in Folkestone. While in school, Wood won four first awards and three second awards for his paintings.
Career After leaving England in 1910, Wood roamed the United States in search of landscape subjects. He lived in Maine, rural Ohio, Woodstock, New York, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, San Antonio, and Monterey, California. He settled in Laguna Beach, California in 1940. He was a popular exhibitor at the Laguna Art Festival and a Life Member of the Laguna Art Association.Wood exhibited his work at most Laguna Art Festivals from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. He was represented by galleries in Laguna Beach, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Cleveland. He was also represented in the early San Antonio Plein-Air exhibitions in the 1920s, was active in the art colonies of San Antonio, Texas in the 1930s, in Monterey, California in the 1940s, and in Laguna Beach in the 1950s.
Wood's work was widely published by a number of publishers, the most prolific being Donald Bonnist's Donald Art Company which, in less than two years, distributed more than one million copies of October Morn, Wood's most popular print. The Donald Art Company stamp, D.A.C.N.Y., is found on millions of Wood reproductions.
Wood was at the peak of his fame in the 1950s through 1970s when his scenes of the Catskill Mountains in New York, the California coast, the Grand Tetons, the Rocky Mountains, the Texas Hill Country and the Cascades were most popular. His popularity made him a household name and millions of his reproductions were printed in large editions by a number of publishers. Titles like Autumn Bronze, Early Spring, Pine & Birch, Texas Spring, and The Old Mill are found in homes across North America.
Later life In the early 1960s, Wood moved to Bishop, California with his wife, the artist Caryl Wood. While in Bishop, the Woods became friends with landscape painters Robert Clunie and Richard Coons. The Woods sold the property to move to San Diego, where they restored a Victorian home.Images of both these homes are reproduced on the official robertwood.net website. After a few years in San Diego, they returned to Bishop, where they purchased a smaller property.
Wood died in Bishop at the age of 90, just a month before a large retrospective exhibition was mounted at the Morseburg Galleries in Los Angeles, by Howard Morseburg and the Newport Beach gallery owner Raymond Hagen.Gaston, Godfrey, Robert Wood Retrospective, Exhibition Catalog, Morseburg Galleries, Los Angeles, California, 1979
Legacy Wood was an extremely facile painter and his artistic production was substantial, in excess of 5,000 completed works. His work is sold at galleries specializing in historic American art and is sold frequently at auction, with his auction record in excess of $40,000.Ask Art reference site lists hundreds of sales with a value of more than $40,000.
See also
California Plein-Air Painting American Impressionism Robert Clunie, a California plein-air artist and Bishop friend Carl Hoppe, a South Texas artist who worked with Wood
Notes
Sources Kronquist, Lawrence, Robert Wood, gallery brochure, Laguna Beach, California, 1973 Gaston, Godfrey, Robert Wood Retrospective, Exhibition Catalog, Morseburg Galleries, Los Angeles, California, 1979 Morseburg, Jeffrey, Robert Wood Centennial, Exhibition Catalog, Morseburg Galleries, Los Angeles, California, 1989 Morseburg, Jeffrey, Robert W. Wood (1889–1979), unpublished essay, West Hollywood, California, 2007 Interview with Howard E. Morseburg (b. 1924), Wood's Los Angeles dealer, Santa Ynez, California, 2010
Further reading Fillmore, Gary, Canyon Magic: Landmark Art from the Picerne Collection, 2010 Dunbier, Lonnie Pierson (Editor), The Artists Bluebook: 34,000 North American Artists, 2005 Davenport, Ray Davenport's Art Reference: The Gold Edition, 2005 Vose, Marcia Latimore (editor), Vose Art Notes: A Guide for Collectors, Winter 2003, Volume XI Hughes, Edan Milton, Artists in California: 1786-1940 (two volumes), 2002 Grauer, Michael R and E. Harvey, The Eyes of Texas: The Bill and Mary Cheek Collection, 2001 Powers, John & Deborah, Texas Painters, Sculptors & Graphic Artists: A Biographical Dictionary of Artists in Texas Before 1942, 2000 Falk, Peter Hastings (editor), Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975, 3 volumes, 1999 Grauer, Paula and Michael R., Dictionary of Texas Artists, 1800–1945, 1999 McCann, Chris, Master Pieces: The Art History of Jigsaw Puzzles, 1998 Southwest Art, Red Book Price Guide to Western American Art, 1997 Jones Gallery, New Beginnings: A Group Exhibition, 1993 Southwest Art Magazine, The Red Book: Western American Price Index, 1993 Steinfeld, Cecilia; William H. Goetzmann (Intro), Art for History's Sake The Texas Collection of the Witte Museum 1993 Falk, Peter Hastings, Dictionary of Signatures & Monograms, 1988 Zellman, Michael David, 300 Years of American Art, (two volumes), 1986 Dawdy, Doris, Artists of the American West:A Biographical Dictionary (3 volumes), 1985 Falk, Peter Hastings (editor), Who Was Who in American Art: Artists Active Between 1898-1947 Flume, Violet, The Last Mountain: The Life of Robert Wood, 1983 Schimmel, Julie; Gilbert Tapley, Vincent Stark Museum of Art: The Western Collection, 1978 Samuels, Peggy and Harold, The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West, 1976 Museum of Texas Tech University, Selections from the Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Fred T. Hogan, 1974 Hagen, Raymond, Robert Wood Exhibition, 1970
External links Website devoted to Robert W. Wood Mount Shasta as a visual resource Texasbluebonnetpainters website