Maurice Del Mue’s painting of our hill, Forest Knolls, 1939

Maurice Del Mué, Forest Knolls, Marin County, 1939.

Paris-born Marin County artist Maurice August Del Mué (1875-1955) emigrated to San Francisco when he was seven, and died in at Ross Hospital in Marin County, January, 24, 1955 after a long illness. He was 79. I was barely three. 

Besides sharing a birthday, November 24, and a town in common, Forest Knolls, I have a deep connection with Del Mué as he painted the central WPA mural at our Lagunitas school, it graces the hall of the old school office and was fully restored. When we had Picture Day at school, we’d line up along the mural waiting our turn. I was always fascinated by it. It was a fixture of my childhood.

Del Mué painted other murals at College of Marin Student Union, in Kentfield, at Tamalpais High School, in Mill Valley, and at the Officer’s Club at Hamilton Airfield in Novato. Painter Tom Wood says the The 38 x 8 foot mural “The Golden Hills of Marin” at Tamalpais High School, was restored. The College of Marin mural was saved; not restored, but in good shape; it hangs informally in one of the science rooms at COM. The Hamilton mural has never been found.

Maurice lived in a small cabin on Resaca Ave., I think near Ron Thelin’s shack above the Nielsen’s old place. So it’s quite probable my family knew him. Tom Wood said he lived in that house for seven years, and another friend, Claudia Ward said she grew up in that house. The Wards incorporated the art studio when they remodeled their house. On Facebook, Everett Basset posted, “I have del Mue’s property now with a nice view of the falls in the other direction. I found some of his sketches and paintings rolled up in the walls.” Imagine! 

Photo by Everett Bassett used with permission, 2020

Michael Toivonen, who posted the Del Mué painting of Forest Knolls on Facebook, and got me into this mess, salvaged a small pantry door from Del Mué’s house, he plans to mount the giclée print on it. Michael was friends with the former owner, and spent quite a bit of time working on the cabin. He said his friend found old paint tubes scattered on the hillside, Del Mué’s castoffs.

Del Mué was a poster artist and illustrator who worked for the San Francisco News Call Bulletin, and during the Roaring 20s, he was an illustrator for the Chronicle. During the early 1890s, Del Mue studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and at the San Francisco Art Association, which morphed into the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He attended the California School of Design, leveled during the 1906 earthquake, which became the San Francisco Art Institute. 

In 1902, he, and fellow artists, including Gottardo Piazzoni, following in the Impressionists’ footsteps, formed the renegade California Society of Artists as a rebuttal to the staid, conservative San Francisco Art Association. Though not associated with the later Society of Six, I suspect Del Mué was well-acquainted with those artists, Certainly Louis Siegriest. Though they painted in a more avant-garde style, they were all considered California Impressionists. My friend Micaela’s father, Pat Wall, opened the first modern art gallery on the west coast in Carmel, so I got to see the work of those edgy California artists.

When I was a child, I used to spend time pestering the art students painting in the courtyard of the SF Art Institute when my mom lived on Chestnut with Dobie Gray. She was very much part of the "The 'In' Crowd" and Dobie gave me a signed .45 of his hit record. Wish I still had that record.

I wonder if that courtyard mural was Maurice’s. I remember circling ravens. In 1930, Diego Rivera was hired to paint The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City, in the art gallery. Other Art Institute  luminaries included Maynard Dixon, painter of San Francisco's labor movement. Imagine the Art Institute, circa 1946, with Ansel Adams, Minor White, Edward Weston, and Dorothea Lange developing prints in the basement. It boggles the mind that I once played in the shadowed halls of all that greatness.

Maurice’s palette and style resembles Maynard Dixon’s work. No small wonder, as both Del Mué and Dixon worked for a major iconic outdoor advertising billboard company, Foster & Kleiser. If you’ve seen the logos for Hills Brothers Coffee, Schillings Coffee, Southern Pacific Railroad, then you know his work.

Del Mué is mentioned in Nancy Boas’ book,The Society of Six: California Colorists. Otherwise there is scant information on him. Somewhere I have a brochure on the restoration of our school mural. When I find it, I’ll post it along with a photo of the mural. Del Mué’s Spring Fog near Pt. Reyes-Marin County at Invaluable Auction House looks suspiciously like it was a study for our school mural. Scroll down to Lot 17 on their auction page to see another facsimile of the above painting of our hill, Forest Knolls, Marin County, 1939. But there’s a better reproduction at Bonham’s auction house.

Maurice Del Mué Spring Fog near Pt. Reyes-Marin County, 1935

There are four more Del Mué paintings at Christopher Queen Gallery including one of Mt. Tam that look like earlier work. More work at AskArt auction. And his bold Marin hills with barn at TrotterGalleries is more in the avant-garde camp.

Around 1933 Del Mué built an art studio in Forest Knolls, he also lived in Kentfield. At one point, he became a member of the Society of Marin Artists. Since he was a member of the Bohemian Club, he probably was familiar with the area on campouts to Taylorville, Camp Taylor. Del Mué’s California Impressionist style emulated the Post-Impressionists, “Del Mue was motivated by color and often boasted that he had his own blue that he humorously referred to as "Del Mue blue." —TrotterGalleries I’ve seen his subtle landscape paintings at the De Young, and the Oakland Museum.

A 20 x16” giclée reprint of one of Maurice’s works on canvas, Forest Knolls, is available on Ebay. That’s our hill depicted in the upper right corner. You can still see the faint line of the old barbed wire fence line, I knew every metal fence post as my job was to repair the fence to keep the horses in. A continuum of landscape and history and and time. My grandfather strung that fence. My grandmother was raising her brood, including my mother, in the valley below. I am so tempted to buy the reprint but, the thought of a canvas print leaves me cold. Maybe this fragment will have to suffice.  

Crazy Note bene: Following a wild hair, I found a vague reference to Montana painter Russell Chatham, whose Italian-Swiss grandfather, Tonalist painter, Gottardo Piazzoni was the man Maurice founded the California Society of Artists with. Then I found out that Piazzoni did those amazing flat Japonica style murals at the old main SF Public Library, I was madly in love with them, we nearly lost them to progress, but they’re now safely installed at the new de Young Museum. Maurice’s sister Beatrice married Gottardo Piazzoni. Russ’s mother.

It gets better. I discovered that “American landscape painter Mireille Piazzoni Wood was Piazzoni's daughter, painter-writer Philip Wood, his son-in-law. Artists Thomas Wood and Russell Chatham are Piazzoni grandsons.” Cousins! Well I’ll be... Tom Wood is an old friend who lives next door to my cousins in Nicasio. Small world.

Maurice Del Mué, High Sierra Landscape, Worcester Museum