A Great River Mystery….

We received the most interesting email last week…and so began the mystery of the Rogue River painting. The writer of the email, who prefers to remain anonymous, inherited a watercolor by artist Percy Gray (see below). His question is a simple one but one that we can’t answer. Perhaps our readers can?!?  What portion of the Rogue River was this painting drawn?

A little about this fine artist. Percy Gray was an American painter born in 1869 who died in 1952. Gray’s talent, which had been recognized and encouraged from childhood, had come to early fruition in the thorough, academic art instruction of his adolescent years.  As he developed his craft, he became best known for the idiosyncratic way he painted in watercolor, building it up in layers. This combination of line and color added up to a vision that was artistically unique and also captured the very essence of the landscapes that he portrayed.

Known as the “Lyric Painter of California,” Gray spent most of his most prolific years in the San Francisco Bay area, Marin County, and Sonoma County. A description of this timeless artist shows a man of modest character. “He [Gray] remains one of the most satisfying of the representational artist of the first half of the twentieth century, both for his exceptional facility, notably in watercolors, and for his intuitive understanding of California’s seasons, climatic conditions, and changing moods. Far removed from the hurried pace of modern life, Gray’s paintings offer viewers an opportunity to reflect on timeless, elemental themes of nature and the land.”

According to an article in The San Francisco Examiner on November 7, 1926, Gray exhibited several paintings at the Gump Gallery in San Francisco. One of the most heralded was the painting above of the Rogue River which the article called, “One of his most striking themes is ‘Rogue River, Oregon’–a mighty stream running through a narrow canyon, holding the spectator gripped by the force of the majesty of a wonder of natures.” Readers, any ideas of the painting’s location on the Rogue River?