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rafrM^ University of California Berkeley . >-i..: .. Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California George Post A CALIFORNIA WATERCOLORIST With an Introduction by Rex Brandt An Interview Conducted by Ruth Teiser in 1983 Copyright (V) 1984 by The Regents of the University of California All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between the University of California and George Post dated September 4, 1984. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. The legal agreement with George Post requires that he be notified of the request and allowed thirty days in which to respond. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows : George Post, "A California Watercolorist," an oral history conducted in 1983 by Ruth Teiser, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, 1984. Copy No. George Post at his 78th birthday party, Galerie de Blanche Restaurant, San Francisco, where he was presented with his completed oral history, September 29, 1984. TABLE OF CONTENTS George Post INTRODUCTION by Rex Brandt i INTERVIEW HISTORY iii WHO'S WHO IN AMERICAN ART ENTRY iv I BACKGROUND AND EARLY YEARS, 1906-1933 1 Family and Childhood 1 Living in Gold Hill, Nevada 4 High School and Art School in San Francisco 9 First Jobs 16 II INITIAL SUCCESSES AND INFLUENCES 1931-1946 24 Shaw's Flat and Sonora in the Mother Lode 31 The PWA and the WPA 35 Watercolor as a Medium 39 Travels in Mexico and Europe 42 Return to the West Coast: Puget Sound and San Francisco 49 World War II Years 55 Driving Across the United States 59 III TEACHING AND PAINTING 1947-1972 61 Painting Principles 64 Subjects for Watercolors 68 California College of Arts and Crafts 74 IV BUILDING 78 V AN ARTIST'S CAREER 87 Honors, Practical Arrangements, and Workshops 87 Exhibition and Workshops 91 Jurying Exhibitions 97 Who Buys Post Watercolors? 101 Illustrations and Other Commissions 103 Traveling Further Afield 106 Hewitt Workshops HI The Best Places 118 TAPE GUIDE 122 APPENDIX 123 INDEX 131 Regional Oral History Office University of California Room 486 The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California 94720 BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION (Please print or write clearly) Your full name ',' d>/_T( ^Xr<lC /~ r*' L_^) / ") / Date of birtuS^PT 29 . 'Ov^ Place of birth QAKl.hMD Father's full name C^EC^&G'E. fi , T^OC Birthplace .^Ak\ FTPxAAJ / ^ C P O , Occupation A C.(L O ( J AJ TTZ\ A) Mother's full name & U Th\ (~ Birthplace ^A Ai TA MOk\i(A Occupation Where did ? you grow up CtiKl AMD A . .VlP*)k)\A C ITU HP I/- I r J / Present community SJM Fl&A/sl *./,5 ^. O C PoLYTEC H M / C W / Education GRAMMAR S^OOL.. C CALIJ= ^g^oojL, or Occupation^ ) I Special interests or activities P^ /' \)T/ KJ (? ^ /P>A V B. L L GEORGE POST 1936 Photograph by Sonya Noskoviak INTRODUCTION I had come over to San Francisco from Berkeley to visit Tom Lewis, another Southern California artist who had preceded me by a year, arriving in the Bay area in 1933. In the course of our conversation I mentioned how much I admired the watercolor landscapes of George Post. Tom said, "Why don't you tell him that, he lives next door!" A few steps along the narrow, high- ceilinged hallway of the old brick loft building on Montgomery Street; a hesitant knock on a studio door; a friendship of fifty years began. Post was already recognized in the San Francisco area as a painter of lucid, forceful watercolors. Geometrically firm yet sensitive, employing smokey earth colors and areas of untouched white paper, they were unique. Their subjects responded to the artist's homeland San Francisco, the Bay, and the Mother Lode with great perception and feeling. Shortly, these works were to receive national attention and to assure George Post's position in the world of American landscape painting. To get there is one thing; but how to survive for half a century is another. California seems to devour young artists. Its cultural diversity and cult of change are unrivaled and have contributed to the rapid rise and fall of many bright young painters but not Post. I think that the secret of George Post's success both as a painter and as a teacher of painting is inherent in the cohesiveness of his personality. He even looks like his paintings, and they look like him! Angular yet graceful, simple yet powerful, positive yet critical. There is no dichotomy. What you see is what you get a loving involvement with the world, focused sharply by the disciplines of paint and white paper. As with the poet Robinson Jeffers, the artist's life and his work are one. The direct involvement with his subject is unique, especially today when we find so many painters turned back by the camera and the need for novelty, ratiocinating within the four walls of the studio, insulated from the world we share. Not so Post. Rain or shine, on the fog-draped Mendocino coast, in the summer heat of his ranch at Sonora, on the windy streets of his beloved San Francisco or of Calcutta, Hong Kong, or Paris he paints en plein air. With an innocent eye and firm hand, perched on a tiny stool, drawing board propped on the earth at his toes, he and his subject are inseparable. The act of painting is a direct communion. Creating this way is neither easy nor typical, (The Oriental masters, for example, eschewed direct painting.) But when it can be accomplished it is extraordinarily successful. Witness Turner, Cezanne, the Impressionists, Winslow Homer, John Marin, and George Post! ii When the artist first displayed his watercolors, the medium was not considered seriously as a painting form. Watercolor drauings were lumped with prints and other graphics, and relegated to the collector's cabinet. Now they are "out of the closet" and gracing many walls, thanks to a handful of American painters and their abilities and persistence. Not the least of this group were the Californians whose brash, bold, and decorative paeans to the Western outdoors captivated the art world of the forties through the sixties. Loosely affiliated as members of the California Water Color Society, they and their works became known to a wide audience through the annual exhibitions and the traveling exhibits which ensued. Among the names most frequently appearing in the reviews of this group are Southern Californians Phil Dike, Millard Sheets, and Barse Miller; and, from the Bay area, Dong Kingman, Maurice Logan, Tom E. Lewis, and George Post. This group along with some other members was invited to exhibit at New York's Riverside Museum in 1936. Although the Museum is a distance up the Hudson, turnout was unexpectedly large and enthusiastic. Critics supplied rave reviews. The Metropolitan Museum acquired several works for its permanent collection, including one by Post. And the Society was invited to exhibit again, and then a third time. Watercolor, especially the fresh California viewpoint, was in. George Post was on his way to the large and admiring audience he now enjoys. Not only the paintings but the painter himself have reached out beyond the edges of the Pacific, As a teacher of painting, Post is examplar and ubiquitous; classes on the West Coast, East Coast, in Europe, Mexico, Hawaii, attest to his success and have created a large and loyal following of friends, students, and fellow artists. I am happy to include myself among this group, and am honored to be invited to write about this unique individual on behalf of all of us. Rex Brandt 1 July 1984 High Tor Shaw Island, Washington iii INTERVIEW HISTORY George Post is a man characterized by the kind of independence and restlessness that seem to belong to the American West, an artist who, throughout his long career, has taken his own way. His watercolors (all distinctly his own, eloquently characterized by Rex Brandt in his Introduction), together with the classes he has taught and the lectures he has given, have influenced many whose professions lie in the arts. To others whose interest in painting is avocational he has brought understanding and pleasure. George Post, Catherine Harroun, Elvin Fowler, and the interviewer have been friends for many years, and this interview began as an informal taping of some of Post's recollections that the three of us had heard from time to time. Only after it was underway was an effort made to impose order, by chronology and subject matter. Some further rearrangement was done during the editing of the transcript by the interviewer. The six interview sessions were held in the spring of 1983 in San Francisco at the studio where Catherine Harroun and Ruth Teiser have worked, and at the home of Catherine Harroun, who participated in the initial sessions. Elvin Fowler attended the final session and added details of some incidents he had witnessed and participated in. After the transcript had been edited by the interviewer, both Elvin Fowler and George Post read it over and checked dates and names and other matters , and the latter made a number of additions of interest.

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