Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-12-15
SAN FRANCISCO LETTER.
NOTES CONCERNING ART WORK AND
ARTISTS.
Little Sisters Flower Fete-A Song Kecital
Park Conservatory - The PARK
and ocean Railroads.&c..

SAN Francisco, December u, 1883.
Twas very much interested to hear the
other day that Julian Rix had sent score
of pictures out here from New York to be
sold. They were on private exhibition at
the big parlor, or biIliard'room, at the
Grand Hotel. ("Dining room" is on the
door, but that seems to be comparatively
Unnecessary Mounting guard over the
paintings was young Frank Unger, easily
described to Californians as the man who
acted Admiral Joseph Porter in our first
siege of "Pinafore," to Emelie Melville's
josephine, half dozen years ago. Some
of the pictures were extremely pretty and
a great advance in technique upon anything
/ have ever seen from Rix's brush, save
and except the "Roofs in Chinatown" ex-
hibited here at the Art Association rooms,
about this time last year, the picture that
took the prize at the Salmagundi Club ex-
hibition in New York city. Most of these
on view at the Grand Hotel are done in
black and white, not the usual very white
moon in very neutral tint sky lighting
mp a CHASTITY sail on an abysmal sea, but
summer and winter landscapes, wandering
rivers and one view on the water front, OF
house propped on piles, with staircase
rickety and Shiny, leading down to the
water. Clearly the study was made at
low tide, and the water mark and ooze,
the muddy bank and view through
THE ToTTERING ROTTEN SUPPORTS,
Suggested some unpleasant rendezvous of
Dickens riverside characters, and literally
cried out for a scene to be written up to it.
Another, just as good in handling and more
pleasant in suggestion, was done in colors.
A cottage, also on the water front, and
lighted up from within, schooner, moored
beside a pier, green light bound to the
mast, and long tremulous lines OF light
upon the shallow water under the keel. In
the sky red moon half swallowed up in
fog. This moon is mania with the artist
for the moment, as birch trees and lurid
sunsets on snow were formerly. The dec
orative screen has laid its fell fascination
upon him, and the red and yellow moon,
full or crescent, appears continually, Grad
ling, framing and surrounding things like
the Turkish star and crescent sign on the
Hamman baths turned decorative. My
interest in Rix dates back several years.
He was the first artist 1 ever saw, "near
to, J" as children say. Everyone who has
been carefully kept out of so-cslled Bohe-
mia by anxious relatives, usually feels in
tense curiosity about its inhabitants, curl
osity fostered by such novels as "Penden-
mis-" and "Vanity Fair" and the graceful
illusions to their "salad days" in certain
poems of Aldrich and Edmund Stedman,
and the knights of the brush generally pre-
sent themselves to the youthful magma
tion as the most interesting of the artistic
brotherhood.
SKETCH OF THE ARTIST.
Back in 1877 there was given what was
called an artists ball at the Art Associa.
tion rooms, intended to be "the first, as
'twere, of long line of such, to start a
fund for the amelioration OF art in the city.
The tickets were expensive, the reception
committee swell and everything auspici-
Gus. When l knew it was possible for me
to go my happiness was boundless, and, on
arriving, when the chief of the reception
committee-the loveliest woman | ever
hope to meet, by the way-asked me,
"Now whom do you wish to meet ?" l
could lust gasp out, "All the artists that
are here" Rix came first, tall and blonde,
with long English side whiskers, and
funny drawl in speaking, anything but
English, yet a thoroughly satisfactory
specimen of his fraternity. He dared to
speak of the coming supper as hash, and
showed himself recklessly untrammelled
and independent person. Envy mingled
with my admiration. Later l heard how
he had been tue to his art under difficult
ties. His father, Judge Rix, did not ap-
calling, and, to cure him of his fancy, put
him into the shop of house and sign
painter, where he might "get all the paint
himself. But Julian painted good signs,
learned TO mix and value colors and always
working steadily toward his object, achieved
studio and canvases at last, and is now in
New York with an eye to Paris. Apropos
of artists, Fred Yates is i'll, has shut up
shop for week and gone into the country
to recuperate. By all advices he had best
90 far south for the cold snap is invading
unheard of places-Santa Rosa for in
stance, where the warm work going on
does not mitigate the atmospheric severity
at all. By the way, since the trial makes
everyone connected with the suit interest.
ing for the hour, gossip hastens to say that
Mrs. Dan Cook will marry her deceased
husbands brother, Seth Cook, and that
that last named individual is furnishing a
princely residence in New York in which
to instate his bride but those who should
know best deny positively that any such
marriage is in the least likely ever TO be.
The
LITTLE SISTERS FLOWER FETR
Took place at the Pavilion last Wednesday
evening. The Little Sisters Infant Shell.
ter is one of the prettiest charities in the
city, 1t is day home for working peo-
pies children, the first institution Of the
kind ever founded in this city. Some lit
tie girls, the leader among them, Miss Daisy
Spear only daughter of Mr.. and Mrs. JO-
seph Spear, started the Shelter, which took
its name from its first little patronesses.
Now it is of several years standing, most
OF its first friends being married and set.
tied long ago, though still watching over
its progress. One of its most devoted
friends is Mrs. Buffandeau. | think she
was in Sacramento during the last session
of the Legislature. She is a beautiful
woman, with delicate, regular features,
golden hair and dark eyes, charming type
"if God did all, as Viola says of Olivia in
Twelfth Night people say the golden
hair is in conformity to the prevailing
freak among most California fair ones. Be
sides her good looks Mrs. Buffsndeau has a
really marvellous talent for organizing
snowy and interesting entertainments
something a little out of the usual run,
something which enables the Infant Shell
ter to raise the necessary money each year
without having recourse to the stereotyped
lunch, dance or bazaar. The fete Wednes-
day evening began with minuet danced
by sixteen young ladies,
CoSTUAfRD To REPRESENT FLOWERS.
The dance was executed by two sets of
eight dancers each, under garlsnds of flow.