Lucia Kleinhans Mathews

Lucia Gay Kleinhans (1870–1955) was born in San Francisco to German immigrants, John and Elizabeth (Ribble) Kleinhans, and was the eldest of three children. She enrolled at Mills College in Oakland for a year in 1888 before enrolling at the California School of Design in San Francisco. There, she studied under Arthur Mathews, whom she later married in 1894. Lucia exhibited some of her early work at the San Francisco Art Association’s Fall Exhibition of 1897 and received praise from Justin Sturgis, a writer for The Wave. Her work was modern for California standards and as Sturgis wrote, “admirable and full of promise.”

Between March 1898 and Fall 1899, the Mathewses traveled to Europe and spent considerable time in Paris, France. At this time, Art Nouveau was sweeping the country and had its home in Siegfried Bing’s new gallery of the same name. L’art Nouveau gallery showed works by international artists and craftspeople and the Mathewses would likely have visited or knew of the gallery. During their time in Paris, Arthur opened an atelier while Lucia studied with James McNeill Whistler at his Académie Carmen. Upon returning from Europe, Lucia produced some of the most advanced works of her career. She concentrated on the figure, primarily children, and landscapes after visiting Monterey in 1902. She showed at the first annual salon at the Palace Hotel and received critical acclaim with work shown at the San Francisco Art Association’s Spring exhibition in 1904.

After the April 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, Lucia played a key role in rejuvenating one of San Francisco’s primary exhibition venues, the Sketch Club, an association of women artists that was founded in 1887. Lucia reorganized the club and activities, including the exhibition program. She served on the board of directors for the 1907–1908 term and as president in 1908–1909.

After the earthquake and fire of 1906, Arthur Mathews designed and built a new studio complex at 1717 California Street, which would house the most important enterprise of the Mathewses’ careers. In collaboration with John Zeile, a local businessman and art patron, Arthur Mathews founded Philopolis Press and, with Zeile and Lucia Mathews, the Furniture Shop, the company producing carved and painted furniture, picture frames, and other decorative pieces and employing as many as fifty craftspeople. While Lucia supervised furniture decoration and carving, and produced original handcrafted objects of her own, the couple also collaborated. At Philopolis Press, Arthur Mathews and Zeile started the magazine Philopolis, which was concerned with art and city planning and was published monthly from October 1906 until September 1916. Arthur served as the primary author, and Lucia contributed illustrations, decorative type, and page embellishments. After the Furniture Shop and Philopolis Press closed, Lucia continued to paint but focused on the decoration and design of small, handcrafted objects.

_Notes:

_{Shields, Scott A. Artists at Continent’s End: The Monterey Peninsula Art Colony, 1875–1907. University of California Press, 2006.}

_{Shields, Scott A., ed. The Crocker Art Museum collection: unveiled. Crocker Art Museum, 2010.}