Giuseppe Cadenasso

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This biography was submitted by William A. Karges Fine Art - Carmel, CA

Giuseppe Cadenasso was born in Italy in 1858, and moved to Northern California at an early age. Shortly after, he moved to San Francisco where he worked at a number of jobs including a stint singing with the Tivoli Opera house.

Cadenasso’s art caught the eye of established artist Jules Tavernier, who arranged for Cadenasso to receive free art lessons. Later earning enough money, Cadenasso studied under Arthur Mathews at the Mark Hopkins Institute. In 1902, he moved across the Bay to Oakland, where he was head of the Mills College Art Department.

Most inspired by the muted colors of the Tonalist painters, Cadenasso excelled at painting the atmospheric light of the Bay Area. Giuseppe Cadenasso died of injuries suffered after being hit by a car in San Francisco in 1918.

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This biography from the archives of AskART.com.

Known as the "Corot of California," Giuseppe Cadenasso did lyrical, tonalist style landscape painting, spreading the colors with his fingers rather than brushes. He was especially noted for depictions of eucalyptus trees and sunlit marshes, and underscoring his association with native trees was the fact that his first studio, on Russian Hill, was called "The Sign of the Eucalyptus."

Cadenasso was one of the most popular and respected San Francisco artists during the late 1890s and early 1900s. From 1903 to 1917, he was an art instructor at Mills College and during that time, had a studio in Oakland. In 1909, he was awarded the Gold Medal at the Alaska-Yukon Exposition in Seattle.

Unlike many of his peers, Cadenasso did not train in Europe but got his art education in California. There he was discovered by Jules Tavernier who took him to the studio of Joseph Harrington, who gave him free art lessons. He earned enough money to study at the Mark Hopkins Institute as a student of Arthur Mathews and Raymond Yelland. He was also much encouraged by fellow student, Granville Redmond.

He was born in Genoa, Italy in 1918, and at age nine, traveled from Genoa to California, where his uncle owned a vineyard. As a young man, he earned money for his art education from jobs in San Francisco as a waiter and barber and sang Italian opera at the Tivoli Opera House.

He died on February 11, 1918 at Powell and Post Streets, where he was struck by a car when returning from seeing his son off to World War I.