West Coast Artists

Below is information and biographies for art pieces from West Coast artists that we either currently have available, or that we have sold in the past. By “West Coast” we are referring to the Western States in the US including Washington, Oregon, California, and Alaska, as well as the West Coast of Canada.

Artists are organized alphabetically by last name. The artists listed represent a wide range of eras and styles. We have a passion for locating, recognizing, and preserving West Coast artist’s works in a range of eras, movements, styles, mediums and current market values. If you have a piece you would like to sell, or have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

About Our Listing(s):

Circa 1940 etching of the Sonoma County Hospital with Mission style architecture. Signed by the artist lower right. Titled lower left. Architect name (John Easterly) lower right. The title and architect writing is very faint. Image 10 ¾” x 6 ¾.”, Paper 12 ½” x 9 1/8.”

About Gertrude Stone Brooks:
Printmaker Gertrude Stone Brooks grew up in the San Francisco area and studied at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) and the California College of Arts and Crafts (now the California College of the Arts) with Armin Hansen. From 1939 to 1942 Brooks traveled from Sonoma to San Diego documenting the California Spanish missions in sketches, which she later turned into a series of etchings. She exhibited at the Santa Cruz Statewide Exhibit in 1936, and in August of 2023 her work was shown at the Depot Park Museum in Sonoma in the exhibit "Art and Architecture of the California Missions.” Her work is held at Stanford University Library and UC Berkeley Bancroft Library.

About Our Listing(s):

Mid-Century era serigraph titled “Beachcomber” featuring a figure walking toward a huge monolithic rock on the beach with seagulls and a glowing sun overhead. Titled lower left. Signed lower right. Unframed. Double matted. Image 14" x 11." Matting 22 1/8" x 18."

About Walton Butts:
Walton Butts was a Mid-Century era serigraph artist. Butts lived in the south coast area of Washington State, and like his fellow colleague Elton Bennett, he portrayed a variety of picturesque scenes depicting nature and life in the Pacific Northwest.

About Our Listing(s):

Listing #1: The Maid of Dreams, 1909. Orotone on glass (Goldtone). 14 x 11. Frame 18 x 16. Signed with copyright insignia in the image lower left. Numbers underneath signature that are partially under the frame appear to read 38-99. Original frame with original paper backing and Curtis Studio, Seattle, WA narrative sticker intact.

Listing #2: Canon Del Muerto (Canyon of the Dead), 1906. Orotone on glass (Goldtone). Rare 10 x 8. Frame 13.5 x 11.5. Signed with copyright insignia in the image lower left. Piece derives its name from having been the scene of a massacre of Navajo Indians by troops of Mexican soldiers. This is a rare 10 x 8 size orotone/goldtone that was produced in far fewer numbers than the more available 14 x 11 size orotone/goldtone.

About Edward S. Curtis:
Edward Sheriff Curtis was a widely acclaimed American photographer and ethnologist whose work focused on the American West and on Native American people. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Curtis moved to Seattle, WA in his early 20’s and started working as studio portrait photographer. He had a love of nature and the outdoors, and he took many landscape and mountaineering photographs on extended trips in the Northwest and Alaska. He was the official expedition photographer on E.H. Harriman’s Alaskan expedition in 1899, and it was on this venture that Curtis discovered his passion for documenting Native people’s way of life. The monumental “The North American Indian (1907-30)”, a collection he worked tirelessly on for a good portion of his life, constitutes a major compendium of photographical and anthropological material about indigenous people.

About Our Listing(s):

Listing #1: Original wood block print depicting an indigenous girl reaching up to a fish. Image 6 1/8" x 4 1/8", Paper size 7 7/8" x 6." Signed by the artist lower right.

Listing #2: Original wood block print depicting a young indigenous girl with her arms raised in prayer. Image 6 1/8" x 4 1/8", Paper size 7 7/8" x 6."

About Sydney K. Eaton:
Sydney K. Eaton was a prolific artist working in oil, watercolor, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. He worked in the period of and was connected to the Mid-Century Northwest School/Northwest Mystics art movement along with Guy Anderson, Morris Graves, Mark Tobey, Richard Gilkey, Phil McCracken, and many others in the region. Eaton founded the Art Department at Skagit Valley College where he taught for many years. During WWII he was stationed in the North and South Pacific islands, and Papua New Guinea’s indigenous art and spirituality had a particularly strong influence on his future artwork.

About Our Listing(s):

Vintage etching on paper titled “Lone Pine” depicting a single pine tree with a high mountain peak in the background. Signed Louise Lewis Gilbert in pencil lower right. Titled lower left. Matted and framed with glass in a thin wood frame. Image 8 1/2” x 5 7/5.”; Frame 18 1/2” x 14 1/2.”

About Louise Gilbert:
Seattle born painter and etcher Louise Gilbert was an early 20th Century Northwest artist who studied at the University of WA during the era when Ambrose Patterson formed the art department that fostered many accomplished Northwest artists. Gilbert also lived in Alaska for a time and studied with renown Alaskan artist, Eustace Ziegler. She was an early member of the Woman Painters of Washington in the 1930s. She exhibited at Foster/White in Seattle and was featured in art shows at the Seattle Art Museum, Henry Art Gallery, and the Portland Art Museum as well as being the Director of the Frederick and Nelson Little Gallery in Seattle.

About Our Listing(s):

Mid-Century era oil painting depicting birds in flight. Signed lower left. The piece has a very textural quality as can be seen in close-up photos. Painted on board and placed in a floating frame with wood backing as seen. 41 1/4 wide x 31 1/8 tall x 1 3/8 deep.

About Yvonne Twining Humber:
Humber was born in New York City at the turn of the century. She studied at both the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League and from 1935 to 1943 was employed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) where she developed her style as a painter of the “American Scene.” She moved to the Seattle area in 1943 where she quickly established herself in the Seattle art community. She taught locally for many years and was a member of many local arts organizations, including being a life member of Women’s Painters West (WPW) where she served as President in 1948. Her work is included in the collections of the Seattle Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the RISD Museum.

About Our Listing(s):

Listing #1: Mixed media (watermedia, pencil, metallic elements) painting/drawing on watercolor paper from the "Attic Series" featuring surreal figures under a spotlight looking into another room with surreal figures. This piece is part of a series said to relate to a two-year time frame during WW11 when the artist and his brother hid in their grandparent’s’ attic from the Germans. Signed and dated 7/30/74 upper right. Unframed. Matted with white matboard. Piece it attached to matboard with tape on the top edge of the back. Sight 9 5/8" x 12 7/5." Matboard 16" x 20."

Listing #2: Mixed media (watermedia, pencil) painting/drawing on watercolor paper featuring a surreal, abstracted and colorful anteater figure. Signed lower left. Dated 10/30/73 lower right. Unframed. Attached to white matboard with tape on the back. Artwork 7 1/2" x 9 7/5." Matboard approx. 8 1/8" x 10."

About Johannes Kunst:
Kunst was born in the Netherlands and emigrated to the United States after WWII. The war had a dramatic effect on Kunst and his work as has been explored by a recent exhibition by CoCA and guest curator Matthew Kangas entitled Hiding from the Nazis: The Art of Johannes Kunst. According to research from the exhibition, the Attic Series relates to a two-year period when the artist and his brother hid in the attic of their grandparent’s house to protect them from conscription into slave labor in Germany, a story with deep parallels to Anne Frank whose family was in hiding during the same period. Kunst studied in CA before moving to Seattle in 1989 and retiring to Blaine, WA in 2002. His art has been shown in galleries and museums throughout both the Netherlands and the US.

About Our Listing(s):

Signed Mid-Century era print featuring a man and child walking to the Palace of the Arts building in San Francisco. Strongly graphic monotone piece in gold/yellow and black. Signed both in the plate and in pencil lower right on backing with date "'71." Titled lower left. Unframed. Print 6.25" x 8.5." Paper backing 10" x 12."

About Jack Laycox:
Raised in Northern California, Laycox attended both UC Berkeley and San Francisco State where his studies and early career were in engineering and included a position where he developed technical illustrations for the Atomic Energy Commission. He eventually turned to fine art, however, and developed a boldly colorful and impressionistic style through watercolor and oil painting. He lectured frequently about art and gained widespread recognition and numerous awards throughout his career.

About Our Listing(s):

Enamel fired on glass (from the back). Graphic of a swimmer in front of the Space Needle with rain falling. Signed in the enamel. Glass is concave. 11.5" across.

About Walter Lieberman:
Walter Lieberman is a Seattle based, internationally recognized art glass artist. He was educated at the Massachusetts College of Art and has taught at art and glass programs around the world, as well as locally at Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Northwestern Washington, and the Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle. He has developed a unique glass technique whereby enamels made from glass and pigments are fired onto the glass as you would fire a glaze onto ceramics.

About Our Listing(s):

Circular shaped signed art print (serigraphy and lithography) titled “L’Amour En Fleur” featuring two cockatoos with beaks locked together sitting amidst a profusion of yellow flowers. Numbered 8/150 lower left. Signed lower right. Unframed. Over-matted with double circular mat. Image 14 3/8" circumference. Mat board 20" x 20."

About John Paul Morgan:
Morgan studied fine art and serigraphy with internationally known Japanese artists Jun'ichiro Sekino and Kiyoshi Saito, as well as Glen Alps and Keneth Auvil. He was a master printmaker, and his prints used two printing techniques: lithographic printing through which he achieves fine detail in drawing, and silk-screen printing through which he achieved rich subtle color tones. Each print used as many as twelve successive transparent screens.

Morgan worked with an old Paul Shniedewend Reliance hand press, after which he named his print studio - Reliance. Morgan was president of the Northwest Printmakers and a member of the Graphics Society. His works were represented throughout the US, Canada, and Europe.