Charles Henry Harmon (1859-1936) American, Oil on Canvas. Oil painting of Redwood trees in California. Signed lower left. 

Overall: 16 1/4 X 14 1/4 in. 

Sight: 9 3/8 X 7 3/8 in. 

Depth:   1 3/4 in. 

#2803 . 

Charles Henry Harmon was born on December 23rd, 1859 in Mansfield, Ohio to a wealthy lawyer named George B. Harmon. He moved to San Jose, California with his family in 1874 and at an early age was apprenticed to local portrait painter Louis Lussier. He later spent one year working in a local photography studio retouching negatives. His youth was spent visiting the art galleries of San Francisco and, with no formal training, he began sketching and painting in 1883 in the beautiful Santa Clara Valley. He painted many landscapes of that area and made trips to the remotest parts of the Sierra and the Monterey Peninsula where he painted many coastal scenes. He began exhibiting in San Jose in the late 1880s. By the turn of the century, Gump’s department store of San Francisco handled his work exclusively, and in 1905 he moved to Denver, Colorado to open his own studio. He spent seven years there concentrating on the rugged landscape of the Rocky Mountains, and the Santa Fe, Western Pacific, and Colorado Midland railroad companies each commissioned him to paint scenes along their routes for advertisement. In 1912 he took his new wife back to the family mansion in San Jose, where they had two daughters. He passed away there on October 14th, 1936, and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. Today Harmon landscapes can be found in public and private collections around the West Coast, including a permanent exhibition at the California State Library.