Biography from the Archives of AskART:
A
prolific plein-air painter of western landscape,
Charles Robinson earned a distinguished reputation as a California artist, much
of it based on his panoramic scenes of Yosemite Valley where he summered for
twenty-four years. He also painted in nearby states including Arizona where his
subject matter included the Grand Canyon. In the 1870s, he traveled in South
America and painted tropical scenes of pre-Columbian antiquities.
Charles Robinson was born in East Monmouth, Maine, and his father, David
Robinson, was a theatre producer for Gold Rush mining towns and constructed the
first theatres and plays for stage productions in San Francisco. In 1850, his
family moved to San Francisco where he was educated in the public schools and
grew up sketching harbor scenes. He took lessons at the age of seven from
Charles Nahl, a painter of mining genre and landscape, and earned a diploma at
age 13 from the Mechanics' Institute for best marine drawing for a juvenile.
From 1861 to 1873, he lived in Vermont because the family was forced out of San
Francisco by threats resulting from his father being on the Vigilance Committee.
On the East Coast, he became the pupil of marine artists William Bradford and
M.F.H. De Haas as well as Impressionist George Inness. He was also much
influenced by Albert Bierstadt and James Hamilton.
He lived in Clinton, Iowa from 1873 to 1874 to court and marry Kathryn Wright,
and then returned to San Francisco. He first worked as a retoucher of photos,
and he and his wife wrote and did illustrations for "Overland Monthly" and
"Century" magazine.
By 1876, Robinson was exhibiting regularly as a painter, and in 1880 began
making trips to Yosemite Valley. He was also in Paris between 1899 and 1901 and
offered the Paris Exposition in 1900 a painting of Yosemite that was 50 x 380
feet and weighed five tons. When the committee rejected the panorama, he cut it
into pieces, which he sold for passage money home.
In the earthquake and fire of 1906, many of his paintings were destroyed in a
warehouse where he had thought they would be safe. In 1921, a fire in his home
destroyed twenty years worth of Yosemite paintings. He died May 8, 1933 in San
Rafael, California.
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
Michael David Zellman, "300 Years of American
Art"Katherine Emma Manthorne, "Tropical Renaissance"