biographie de Thomas Almond AYRES (1816-1858)

Birth place: New Jersey

Death place: at sea near San Francisco

Profession: Landscape painter, illustrator

Exhibited: McNulty's Hall, Sacramento, CA; American Art Union, NYC (1857: Yosemite sketches)

Work: Yosemite National Park; de Young Mus., San Francisco; Bancroft Library , Univ. California, Berkeley; Soc. California Pioneers; NYPL

Comments: Ayres began as a draftsman in St. Paul (MN) before going out to California in 1849 to join the Gold Rush. He traveled widely throughout the interior of the state and in 1855 was with the first tourist party to visit the Yosemite Valley, where he sketched the earliest known views. These sketches were published as illustrations in Hutchings' Illustrated California Magazine. He also painted a panorama which had a long run at McNulty's Hall in Sacramento. Returning to the East coast in 1857, Ayres exhibited in NYC and was hired by Harpers to illustrate a series of articles on California. During the early part of 1858 he made a sketching tour of Southern California, but on his way back to San Francisco was drowned in the sinking of the Laura Bevan, April 26, 1858. His work is rare and was usually done in black chalk on marbleized paper.

Sources: G&W; Van Nostrand, Thomas A. Ayres: Artist-Argonaut of California"; Van Nostrand and Coulter, with 3 repros.; Peters, America on Stone, pl. 22; Portfolio, Sept. 1942, frontis.; Howell, "Pictorial Califoriana," 63-61, two repros. of drawings now in Yosemite Museum. More recently, see Hughes, Artists in California, 27; Peggy and Harold Samuels, 15."