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THEODORE WORES Biography


Painter. Born in San Francisco, California on August 1, 1859. Wores began his art training at age 12 in the studio of Joseph Harrington who taught him color, composition, drawing, and perspective. When the San Francisco School of Design opened in 1874 he was one of the first pupils to enroll. After one year in the school under Virgil Williams, he further studied at the Royal Academy in Munich, and subsequently with Rosenthal, Chase, Duveneck, and Whistler.

Upon returning to San Francisco in 1881, he began painting Chinatown subjects. Three years were spent in Japan in the mid-1880’s followed by years of travel when he exhibited in London, NYC, Boston, and made a second trip to Japan before returning to San Francisco in 1898. About this time Wores concentrated on portraiture but began painting the California landscape for the first time. The years 1901-03 were ones of travel in Hawaii, Samoa, and Spain.

The Wores family home and his studio burned in the 1906 fire. The following year he was appointed dean of the San Francisco Art Institute, a position he held for six years. In 1913 he painted in Hawaii and Calgary, Canada and 1915-17 was spent in Taos, New Mexico where he painted the Native Americans of the Southwest. In 1926 he remodeled an abandoned Methodist Church in Saratoga and converted it into a week end retreat while maintaining a residence in San Francisco at 1001 California Street. His artistic output was great and included Japanese, Hawaiian, Samoan figure studies and San Francisco Chinatown subjects.

In his later years he concentrated on the flowering orchards around his studio in Saratoga. During his early career his palette held the warm brown colors of the Munich School and evolved later to the lighter shades of Impressionism. He died in San Francisco on September 11, 1939 having had a long and successful career. Wores has since become an internationally known artist.

Member: San Francisco Art Association; Bohemian Club; Century Club; Salmagundi Club; Art Society of Japan; New English Art Club, London.

Exhibited:  Royal Academy, London; Paris Salon; World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893; California MidWinter Exposition, 1894; Bohemian Club, 1894 (solo); National Academy of Design; Century Club, New York, 1904; deYoung Museum; Stanford Museum, 1922; Cosmos Club, Washington, DC; Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939.

Awards: gold and bronze medals, Royal Academy, Munich, 1876, 1878; St. Louis Exposition.1895; gold medal, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915.

Works held: Bohemian Club; Oakland Museum; California Palace of the Legion of Honor; deYoung Museum; San Francisco Museum of Art; St. Francis Hospital, San Francisco; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; White House, Washington, DC; Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; Crocker Museum, Sacramento; California Historical Society; Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art; Honolulu Academy of Art; Amon Carter Museum of Art, Fort Worth.

Impressionism, The California View; Fld; Theodore Wores, the Japanese Years; CAR; Theodore Wores, Artist in Search of the Picturesque; AAA 1919-33; Ber.