George Michael Gaethke (July 31, 1898 – August 28, 1982) was an American printmaker, watercolorist, and painter. He worked for the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, and was active in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

Early life and education

George Michael Gaethke was born on July 31, 1898, in

Bathgate Bathgate ( or , ) is a town in West Lothian, Scotland, west of Livingston, Scotland, Livingston and adjacent to the M8 motorway (Scotland), M8 motorway. Nearby towns are Linlithgow, Livingston, and West Calder. A number of villages fall under ...

, North Dakota, United States. From a young age he was raised in

Butte In geomorphology, a butte ( ) is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas, plateaus, and table (landform), tablelands. The word ''butte'' comes from the French l ...

, Montana. He attended the

University of Montana The University of Montana (UM) is a public research university in Missoula, Montana, United States. UM is a flagship institution of the Montana University System and its second largest campus. Fall 2024 saw total enrollment hit 10,811, marki ...

, and the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

. In 1924, Gaethke moved to San Francisco to continue his studies; where he studied under Rudolph Schaeffer at the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design, and at the California School of Fine Arts (now

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mis ...

). He briefly attended the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a Private university, private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which gr ...

(SAIC). In 1919, Gaethke married artist Vera Allison, and together they had one child.

Career

In 1934, Gaethke assisted artist

Maxine Albro Maxine Albro (January 20, 1893 – July 19, 1966) was an American painter, muralist, lithographer, mosaic artist, and sculptor. She was one of America's leading female artists, and one of the few women commissioned under the New Deal's Federal Ar ...

in her mural at

Coit Tower Coit Tower (also known as Coit Memorial Tower) is a tower in the Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California, overlooking the city and San Francisco Bay. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, San Franc ...

Telegraph Hill A telegraph hill is a hill or other natural elevation that is chosen as part of an optical telegraph system. Telegraph Hill may also refer to: England * A high point in the Haldon Hills, Devon * Telegraph Hill, Dorset, a hill in the Dorset Downs ...

; and he also worked for the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

(WPA) as a

lithographer Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German ...

. The San Francisco Museum of Art (now

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

) printed Christmas cards in December 1942 for the gift shop featuring visual artists (both local and historically international), including Gaethke, Harold Mallette Dean,

Herman Volz Herman Roderick Volz (1904–1990) was a Swiss-American painter, muralist, lithographer, set designer, decorative artist and ceramist. He was politically active, vocal and often made social statements through his imagery and he was especially ta ...

Sargent Claude Johnson Sargent Claude Johnson (November 7, 1888 – October 10, 1967) was one of the first African-American artists working in California to achieve a national reputation.

Jacques Schnier Jacques Schnier (1898–1988) was a Romanian-born American artist, sculptor, author, educator, and engineer. He was a sculpture professor at the University of California, Berkeley from 1936 to 1966. Early life and education Jacques Preston Sch ...

Tsuguharu Foujita was a Japanese–French painter. After having studied Western-style painting in Japan, Foujita traveled to Paris, where he encountered the international modern art scene of the Montparnasse neighborhood and developed an eclectic style that borrow ...

Jacques Callot Jacques Callot (; – 1635) was a baroque printmaker and drawing, draftsman from the Duchy of Lorraine. He is an important person in the development of the old master print. He made more than 1,400 etchings that chronicled the life of his peri ...

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo Giovanni Battista Tiepolo ( , ; 5 March 1696 – 27 March 1770), also known as Giambattista (or Gianbattista) Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice who painted in the Rococo style, considered an import ...

, and

Diego Rivera Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...

. Gaethke and his wife Allison showed their artwork at

Gump's Gump's is a luxury American home furnishings and home décor retailer, founded in 1861 in San Francisco, California. The company was acquired by the Chachas family in June 2019 and announced that it would be opening a San Francisco location for ...

in San Francisco in 1947. In 1967, Gaethke and Allison moved to

Mill Valley Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, United States, located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge and from Napa Valley. The population was 14,231 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Mill Valley is lo ...

, California, where they remained until his death. He died on August 28, 1982, in Mill Valley. Gaethke's work can be found in museum collections including at the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...

, the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

, the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, and the

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. FAMSF's combined attendance was 1,1 ...

References

External links

Oral history interview with George Gaethke, 1964 Sept. 26
from

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

, Smithsonian Institution
George Michael Gaethke, 1898-1982 [Folder
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/nowiki>from Smithsonian Libraries and Archives">Smithsonian Libraries Smithsonian Libraries and Archives is an institutional archives and library system comprising 21 branch libraries serving the various Smithsonian Institution museums and research centers. The Libraries and Archives serve Smithsonian Institution ...