Lucia and Arthur Mathews
Arthur Mathews, a painter, muralist, and craftsman was born in Markesan, Wisconsin in 1860. His family moved to Oakland, California when Arthur was six years old. His first art instruction was from Helen Tanner Brodt while he was in high school. As a teenager, he worked in his father’s architectural office, but later enrolled at the San Francisco School of Design where he studied with Virgil Williams while working as a designer-illustrator for Britton and Rey Lithographers. He continued his studies for four years in Paris at Academie Julian under Boulanger and Lefebvre.
In 1889, he became director of the School of Design in San Francisco. After reorganizing the school, for the next 17 years he exerted great influence over hundreds of his pupils, many of whom became internationally known.
After the earthquake and fire of 1906, he and his wife, Lucia, worked in their California Street workshop making handcrafted furniture, frames, and producing art works that were highly individualistic. Together they popularized a style known today as the California Decorative Style. His murals and paintings exemplify the Art Nouveau style while others are pre-Raphaelite in design. By 1915, art styles had begun to change and the creeping Modernism made the works of Mathews appear old-fashioned and for half a century his work was eclipsed.