Sea Cliff - possibly by Esther Stevens Barney - P3023
Measures 16" x 20", frame is 23 1/2" x 27 1/2". Watercolor, mixed media on board.
Watercolor, mixed media. Original frame, signed. The signature very possibly reads Esther S Barney, and the style is similar to her works online, so we append her biography.
Born in Indianapolis, IN on Jan. 6, 1885, Esther Stevens Barney was the daughter of George and Julia (Stanclift) Grove. (Her mother must have remarried because her brother Samuel also had the last name Stevens.) Esther graduated from Stanford University and then spent one year at the San Francisco Institute of Art.
She further studied at the ASL in NYC under Henri and in Provincetown, MA with Hawthorne. In California she was a resident of Berkeley (1917) and Monterey (1918) where she was a pupil of Armin Hansen.
Esther married Walter T. Barney and in 1921 settled in San Diego. The Barneys also had a ranch in nearby Ramona where she obtained much of her subject matter. After the Expo in 1935, she maintained a studio in Spanish Village in Balboa Park where she produced a line of hand block-printed textiles under the name "Star Stevens." Late in life her studio burned, taking with it a lifetime of work. She then retired to La Jolla, CA where she remained until her death on Jan. 18, 1969.
Member: San Diego Art Guild. Exh: San Francisco Art Association, 1921 (gold medal); San Diego FA Gallery; Calif.-Pacific Int'l Expo (San Diego), 1935 (bronze medal); solos in Pasadena, Hollywood, and La Jolla. In: San Diego Historical Society.
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
American Art Annual 1917-24; California Arts and Architecture list, 1932; Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers (Fielding, Mantle); Artists of the American West (Doris Dawdy); Death record.
