Logan, Maurice (1886-1977)

Born north of San Francisco near Calistoga, Maurice Logan was a painter whose work reflects the profound influences of the masters, John Singer Sargent and Joaquin Sorolla.

He enrolled in the Partington Art School in San Francisco, and after the school was destroyed by the earthquake of 1906, worked with Richard Partington at the Piedmont Art Gallery. Supported financially by his brothers, he became the first student to enroll in the post-earthquake San Francisco Institute of Art, where from 1907 to 1913, he studied with Theodore

Wores, John Stanton, Christian Nahl, and Frank Van Sloun. In 1914, he exhibited for his first show at the San Francisco Art Association 1914 Annual Spring Exhibition.

He attended classes at the Chicago Art Institute and then returned to California where he studied and then taught for eight years at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland.

He and his wife lived on Chabot Road and became neighbors of Selden Gile, with whom he formed the renowned Society of Six, a group led by Gile that espoused bright, rich color (Fauvism), a sense of region, impressionistic style, and rebellion against the prevalent tonalism and classical strictures of William Keith and Arthur Mathews. The Six exhibited together at the Oakland Art Gallery. Today, The Society of Six are recognized as a major influence on the post-war California modernist movement including the Bay Area Figurative artists.

His work is held in many collections and museums around the world, including the Frye Museum in Seattle and the Oakland Museum of Art.

Mandy’s Backyard is a stellar example of his brilliant bravura brushwork and heavy impasto. It illustrates the life of his friend, Mandy, whose home was built in the slough of Oakland Harbor.