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Frederick Butman

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Artist's Biography

Frederick Butman was California's first professional landscape painter, coming to the state from his native Maine in 1857.  His large landscapes portraying such subjects as Yosemite, Mount Shasta and Mount Hood were strong influences on the young Thomas Hill and William Keith and sold for "fabulous sums" to the new tycoons building mansions on Rincon Hill and South Park. (Californian, Oct. 13, 1866).  Butman was the first professional San Francisco-based painter to depict views on the Monterey peninsula.  In September of 1864, Butman sent paintings of the Carmel Mission and the coast at Monterey to the Mechanics Institute Exhibition.  Until his departure to New York in 1866, Butman continued to paint Monterey scenes that were mentioned in the San Francisco newspapers.  Our painting dates to his early period, because no Monterey titles appear in his exhibited works after 1866.  It is a rare and beautiful example from the dawn of California art history, depicting the sweep of Monterey Bay at present-day Seaside from a point of view near the Monterey Peninsula College.