William Hancock Wilke - The Bells of San Gabriel - Block Print 1920s AP1994
Vigorous and assured view of the San Gabriel Mision bell tower by a California master.
Art measures 8 1/2" x 14" and the framce is 13 1/2" x 9 1/2".
William Hancock Wilke (1879-1958), painter, printmaker, designer and illustrator, was born in San Francisco on June 1, 1879. He studied with Arthur Mathews at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute in San Francisco and continued his studies in Paris at Académie Julian with Laurens. Wilke returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1905 living in Berkeley and Palo Alto and worked as a designer in gold and silver for Shreve's for over thirty years. Wilke was a member of the California Society of Miniature Painters, California Society of Etchers, California Print Makers, San Francisco Art Association, and the Bohemian Club. He created illuminations and bookplates for the press of John Henry Nash as well as drawings, watercolors and etchings of scenes of San Francisco and environs. His work was exhibited at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the Oakland Art Gallery and Golden Gate International Exposition. Wilke died in Palo Alto in June 18, 1958. The William Hancock Wilke archive is held in the Department of Special Collections at the Library of the University of California, Santa Barbara.Betty Lark-Horovitz (1894-1995) was an accomplished graphic artist. She was commissioned to do etchings of several buildings at Purdue University in 1930. There were only 100 sets, each numbered and signed by the artist. That same year her engraved views of American cities and views With graver and woodblock over American Highways, was published. ( New York: William Edwin Rudge, 1930.) She was a master of both architectural views as well as views of flora. Betty was the wife of Dr. Karl Lark-Horovitz who was the head of the Department of Physics at Purdue from 1929 to the 1950s. After his death in 1958, she moved to Berkeley, CA. Ref. Edan Milton Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940," Third Edition, p. 547 Provenance: From the estate of tBetty Lark-Horovitz.
