GUY ORLANDO ROSE (1867-1925)

Born in San Gabriel, California, Guy Rose became one of California's premier impressionist painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was also a leading figure in the California regionalist movement.

He was the son of a large Southern California landowning family, and the town of Rosemead bears the family name. He graduated from Los Angeles High School and moved to San Francisco where he did his art training at the School of Design with Virgil Williams and Emil Carlsen.

In 1888, he went to Paris and studied with Benjamin Constant, Jules Lefebvre, and at the Academie Julian with Lucien Doucet. In 1898, he received honorable mention at the Paris Salon, the first artist from California to get such recognition. Some of the work he did in his Paris studio had Oriental motifs, reflecting the fascination of the time with that subject matter.

In the mid 1890s, Rose went to New York and taught at the Pratt Institute and did illustrations for "Harper's," "Scribners," and "Century," and in 1899, returned to France, and he and his wife bought a cottage at Giverny, where he became greatly influenced by Monet and the other Impressionists during the time he lived there from 1904 to 1912. Unlike many of the artists in residence there, he actually became a friend of Monet, who was a mentor. He also had problems with lead poisoning from paint and had periods of time when he was unable to paint.

In 1914, having lived eight years at Giverny, Rose moved permanently to California and taught and served as Director of the Stickney School of Art in Pasadena. Six years later, he had more lead poisoning and suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed. He died on November 17, 1925.

Guy Rose was a member of the California Art Club and Painters and Sculptors of Los Angeles. His work is in numerous collections including the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana; the Los Angeles County Museum; and the Fleischer Museum in Scottsdale, Arizona.