Etchers of Santa Barbara (Part 2)

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Occasional Papers No. 12

1969

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Mrs. Thomas Moran

Cover etching by Childe Hassam

N€TICIA5 Santa Barbara Historical Society

C. Brown

When Douglas Parshall, in the course of a casual conversation, remarked that he had been a student, years ago, in a class in etching conducted by the well known Santa Barbara artist, Edward Borein, and expressed himself as being willing to write a short “recollection” of this experience, we of the Noticias Board at once decided to make up an Issue of our quarterly magazine around this chance-sent opportunity. This issue eventually became known as “Occasional Papers Number Nine”. At that time, there was available to us the work of some fourteen etchers who had worked or lived for a time in the Channel Area. Many of these good people had, like Parshall, been students in this class.

In the two years that have passed since that time, an almost equal number of etchings that have been made by other and equally famous draughtsmen have come to hand. Wishing to complete the work, as nearly as may be, that we have started, we now are offering to our members this second number of Noticias that is devoted wholly to etchers. We do not mean to imply that the list now is complete, however, for the probabilities are that it is not so. As a few of the new plates seem to require a word or two as to their making, the following paragraphs are added to the above statement of explanation.

“Mount Shasta” is printed on silk. Years ago, it hung on a wall of Miss Anna Edwards’ residence on the west corner of Sola and Chapala Streets — which is the present site of Our Lady of Sorrows Church. In its lower right corner is “El Peirce Getchell”, and in the lower left corner is “W. Keith”; and so it may be supposed that this etching was taken while an oil painting was being done of Mount Shasta by William Keith. This etching may have been made about 1880.

“Ed Borein on De la Guerra Street” was done several decades ago. One of the many interesting features of it for us is the obvious fact that it is “backwards” as we look at it. At first glance, this is disconcerting. Discussing the matter with me, Ed, as he showed the etching to me some two or three decades ago, remarked with some emphasis that this “was allowed” in an etching because, if the artist made the drawing on the copper plate of the scene as he saw it in actuality, the reproduction that later was made from that

Brett Moore

plate of necessity was “backwards”. Usually, as when animals are the subject of the picture, this phase of the etching process is unimportant. “No one cares which way a horse is bucking or which way a herd of cattle is being driven”.

A street that we know well is a different matter.

The two Grosbeck etchings, which were secured from Mr. Harold David son, were made from drawings of individuals seen by the artist when he accompanied the American Contingent of the White Sea — or Murmansk — Expedition after the Kenenski Revolution during the First World War. Dan Grosbeck lived and worked in Santa Barbara for several years during the 1920s.

The “Adobe in Monterey”, by Roi Partridge, was received through the good offices of Mrs. Reimer, of Ojai, as an almost direct consequence of our First Etchings Number. Many of us who were in Santa Barbara a half century ago may remember seeing Mr. Partridge here at that time.

Mr. Hesthel, an etcher of the present day, is doubly interesting to us because it is he who now is in possession of Ed Borein’s old press and is using it here currently.

It is with real regret that we report that we have been unable to secure for this Issue any one of the etchings made by Mr. Joseph Knowles, who was a member of one of Ed Borein’s classes in etching. Unhappily, these plates have become lost.

On the other hand, we are especially happy to be able to present the Moran etchings. Mr. Thomas Moran lived in Santa Barbara about the time of the First World War, when he was photographed by Mr. Edwin Gledhill — see “The Gledhill Number” of Noticias for 1960.

The etching of the Old Mission, by Henry Chapman Ford, is reproduced here because it, also, is printed on silk. For the most part, Mr. Ford used a light paper in his printing. This unusual example of this artist’s draughtsman ship comes from the residence of Mrs. Lee Hyde.

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