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Lot Essay
After establishing a talent for drawing at a very early age, Theodore Wores enrolled in the California School of Design at age 15. He continued his traditional studies and academic training in Europe, and although he returned home to San Francisco at the seminal stages of California Impressionism, his superior draughtsmanship and attention to detail would never be fully lost to this more modern and less exact practice.
A Relic of the Past exhibits both the influence of this novel style of painting and the artist's more traditional painting techniques. The influences of Impressionism are apparent in the dense foliage in the right. These plants are described only by thick strokes of blue and green paint, and are ultimately indecipherable from one another. However, in the garden, the vivid pink, orange and yellow flicks of paint denote nearly every petal of the flowers. As well, the detail in the young girl is evidence of his exceptional draughtsmanship.
Wores once commented on his unique style of painting, "From the start I learned to paint not only the elusive atmosphere and mood of the moment -- the misty dawn, the glow of sunset, the changing lights and shadows of scudding clouds -- but to paint rapidly with a keen eye and sure hand. To that end, as a youth I worked for years, seeking the facility of the old masters, whether painting a human being or a sea of blossoms." (Abstract from California Art Research, W.P.A. Project 2874, 1937, vol. 10, pg. 133)
A Relic of the Past exhibits both the influence of this novel style of painting and the artist's more traditional painting techniques. The influences of Impressionism are apparent in the dense foliage in the right. These plants are described only by thick strokes of blue and green paint, and are ultimately indecipherable from one another. However, in the garden, the vivid pink, orange and yellow flicks of paint denote nearly every petal of the flowers. As well, the detail in the young girl is evidence of his exceptional draughtsmanship.
Wores once commented on his unique style of painting, "From the start I learned to paint not only the elusive atmosphere and mood of the moment -- the misty dawn, the glow of sunset, the changing lights and shadows of scudding clouds -- but to paint rapidly with a keen eye and sure hand. To that end, as a youth I worked for years, seeking the facility of the old masters, whether painting a human being or a sea of blossoms." (Abstract from California Art Research, W.P.A. Project 2874, 1937, vol. 10, pg. 133)