Painter, illustrator, CARL OSCAR BORG was born in Dals-Grinstad, Sweden on March 3, 1879. Borg began copying pictures from books as a child. At 15, he was apprenticed to a house painter and at 20 moved to London where he worked as an assistant to portrait and marine painter George Johansen. Borg began to paint seascapes at this time. In 1901 he sailed for the United States and worked as a house and furniture painter in the East. While serving as a seaman aboard the S.S. Arizonian, he jumped ship in San Francisco in 1903 and decided to make California his home. Lacking funds, he walked the railroad tracks to Los Angeles. He became friends with artist William Wendt who taught him painting techniques. Through the patronage of Phoebe Hearst, from the Hearst newspaper family, he was able to return to Europe and study art in Paris and Rome. Upon his return, Borg taught at the California Art Institute in Los Angeles, and spent six months in Honduras during 1908. From 1918-24 he lived in Santa Barbara where he taught at the School of the Arts. The interval years 1924-35 were spent traveling in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the Grand Canyon. He made three trips to Sweden in the 1930s, and when war broke out in Europe, he was forced to remain there the duration of the war. While in Sweden, he had considerable fame and financial success in selling his paintings of Indians and desert scenes to art collectors. After WWII ended, Borg returned to Santa Barbara where he died on May 8, 1947. His biography was published in Sweden posthumously. His subjects included Hopi and Navajo Indians, cowboys, historical scenes, landscapes, marines, and missions.
Member: California Art Club; Laguna Beach Art Association; San Francisco Art Association; California Society of Etchers; Salmagundi Club, New York; Associate of the National Academy of Design; California Watercolor Society; Academy of Western Painters; Societe Internationale des Beaux Arts et de Lettres, Paris; California Printmakers; Painters of the West.
Awards: gold medal, St. Louis Exposition, 1904; first prize, Los Angeles Painters Club, 1909; silver medal, Versailles, 1914; first prize, California Art Club, 1915; silver medal, PPIE, 1915; gold and silver medals, Panama-California Exposition, San Diego, 1915; silver medal, Societe des Artistes Francais, 1920; silver medal, Pacific Southwest Exposition, 1928; and others.
Major collectors: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey; California State Library; Seattle Art Museum; Library of Congress; de Young Museum; Lowie Museum, University of California, Berkeley; Mills College, Oakland; Oakland Museum; Los Angeles Public Library; Santa Barbara Museum; National Museum of American Art; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle; Gothenburg Ethological Museum, Sweden; Phoenix Museum. |
