California Coastal by Carl Oscar Borg (1879-1947) 12" x 24", Oil/Canvas, Signed Lower Left Est.: $10,000 - $15,000 Sold by John Moran Auctioneers for $22,000 on 2/12/2002

Carl Oscar Borg 1879 – 1947

A specialist in western landscape and genre paintings and prints, Carl Oscar Borg was largely self-taught. He was born to a poor family in Grinstad, Sweden and as a child would copy pictures in books. He did not take up painting until 1899, when he moved to London and worked as an assistant to marine and portrait artist George Johansen.

In 1902 Borg immigrated to the United States and settled in Los Angeles, where he found employment as a scene painter in the movie industry and befriended several local artists including William Wendt. His first exhibition was held in 1905 and was met with favorable reviews, attracting one of his most important patrons, Phoebe Hearst. Hearst sponsored his undertaking of five years of study in Paris and Rome and commissioned several works. She also arranged for him to spend time living among the Southwest Indian tribes, who became his favorite subject matter, along with cowboys, historical sites and Grand Canyon scenery. Throughout his life he traveled and painted in the Southwest, and he also visited South and Central America, including a six-month stay in Honduras in 1908.

Borg’s talent was widely recognized from an early date. Among his many awards were those received while in France in 1913 and 1914, and an award in the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition received upon his return to California. In 1918 he moved to Santa Barbara, where he taught at the School of the Arts, and which was also home to his friend Edward Borein and many other western artists. The years from 1924 – 1935 were mostly spent traveling, and at the outbreak of World War II he found himself in Sweden and unable to return to the US. Borg spent the duration of the war in Sweden, but fortunately his Western works proved very popular in his native country and he enjoyed a strong reputation and financial success there.

After the war Borg returned to Santa Barbara, where he died in 1947. His work is held in many private and public collections, including the Library of Congress, the Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris), the Santa Fe Railway Collection, and the LACMA, De Young, Oakland, Seattle and Santa Barbara Museums.

Sources:

Dawdy, Doris Ostrander. Artists of the American West: A Biographical Dictionary. Chicago: Sage Books, 1974.

Hughes, Edan. Artists in California 1786 – 1940. Sacramento, CA: Crocker Art Museum, 2002.

Samuels, Peggy and Harold. The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West. New York: Doubleday, 1976.