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Annie Harmon
(1855-1930)
Annie Lyle Harmon was born in San Francisco, California in February of 1855. Her parents were natives of Maine who had come to California with the Gold Rush and established a lumber business. She grew up in San Francisco. Although little is known of her earliest activities, in the 1880s she studied locally with Raymond Dabb Yelland and William Keith, whose only daughter married Annie's brother. She maintained a long association with Keith, continued with her career for many years, and remained a resident of San Francisco.
Painting in oils in a style influenced by Keith, Annie produced many paintings, particularly from the mid-1880s to the second decade of the twentieth century. During the 1890s she maintained a studio in San Francisco at 20 Ellis Street and for many years was a resident at 841 Schrader St. Her California works, many of which were lost in the 1906 earthquake and fire, included views of the Bay Area; Monterey and Carmel; Sonoma's redwoods, where she frequented the Harmon ranch in the mountains; Yosemite Valley; and the county in and around Ramona in San Diego County.
She also sketched in Maine, Mexico, and Washington state, where she spent time in the Olympic Mountains and in Port Townsend and Puget Sound. Her early works are usually on canvas. Later, she painted on cigar box lids, creating scenic miniatures of the California environs. She often signed her works with a monogram of confluent letters, AHL.
Annie never married. She died on Aug. 27, 1930.
Exhibited: First Annual Exb. Of Lady Artists of SF, 1885; San Francisco Art Ass'n, 1885-1913; Mechanics' Institute (SF), 1886-97; World's Columbian Expo (Chicago), 1893; California Midwinter Int'l Expo, 1894; California State Fair, 1895-1902; Starr King Fraternity, 1905;
Alaska-Yukon Expo (Seattle), 1909.
Works held: Orange County (CA) Museum.
Source:
Edan Hughes. Artists in California, 1786-1940. 2002.
Maurine St. Gaudens. Emerging from the Shadows: A Survey of Women Artists Working in California, 1860-1960. Vol. 2. 2015.
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