Theodore Wores

Theodore Wores (1859–1939) was an American painter, born and long active in San Francisco. He began his training at twelve and was among the first students of the California School of Design when it opened in 1874. He then spent six years at the Royal Academy in Munich, where he painted alongside William Merritt Chase and Frank Duveneck, and returned to San Francisco in 1881. His early works include Chinese Restaurant (1884), and he is known for paintings made in Japan, which he exhibited in New York and London; in London he became friends with James McNeill Whistler and Oscar Wilde. In 1901–02 he travelled to Hawaii and Samoa, and The Lei Maker (1901) is regarded as his best-known work. He went back to Hawaii in 1910–11 and married Carolyn Bauer in 1910. Later in his career he painted the coast on the western edge of San Francisco and the landscapes of California, including a view of the Custom House in Monterey. Wores died in San Francisco in September 1939.