Gile, Selden Connor (1877-1947).

Belvedere by Selden Gile (1877-1947) 30" x 36", Oil/Canvas, Signed Est.: $150,000 - $250,000 Sold by John Moran Auctioneers for $452,000 on 10/26/2004 ARTIST WORLD RECORD

Painter. Born in Stow, ME on March 20, 1877.

After attending business college in Maine, Gile moved to California in 1901. He was a payroll master in Lincoln and in Oakland after 1905 for Gladding McBean Company.

His art studies were under Perham Nahl, Frank Van Sloun, Spencer Macky, Wm H. Clapp, and at the CCAC. Prior to 1914, he painted in the manner of classical California landscape painters such as William Keith.

After that time he assumed the palette and style of Impressionism-Fauvism, but remained an "individualist" in his mode of expressing the California scene.

During the 1920s, he became the dominant figure in a group of painters known as the Society of Six. The Six were active in the San Francisco Bay area and exhibited regularly at the Oakland Art Gallery. In 1927 Gile moved across the Golden Gate to Tiburon and, shortly thereafter, to a houseboat in Belvedere.

Destitute and an alcoholic, he died at the poor farm in San Rafael, CA on June 8, 1947 and was buried at Mt Tamalpais Cemetery.

Member: Marin County AA; Oakland Art League. Exh: SFAA, 1916-35; Society of Six, 1923-28; Galerie Beaux Arts (SF), 1928 (solo); Calif. Statewide (Santa Cruz), 1929 (prize); Vallejo Art Guild, 1929 (1 st prize); Oakland AA, 1933-36; SFMA Inaugural, 1935; Smithsonian Inst.; 1976-77; Oakland Museum, 1981.

In: Monterey Peninsula Museum; Oakland Museum; Fleischer Museum (Scottsdale). P&S; AAA 1929-33; WWAA 1936-41 ; Society of Six; Expo to Expo; Monterey: The Artist's View; A Feast for the Eyes; American Impressionism; SF Chronicle, 11-10-1984