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March -April 2025
Volume 5, Issue 2
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Emile Norman Endomosaic Installation Completed
Emile Norman (1918-2009) was an American artist, widely known for his sculptures, mosaics, jewelry and his “endomosaic” murals, an artform/process of his own invention, which involved the creation of translucent panels consisting of various media including ceramic, fiber, glass, wood, silk, metal, bone and more, sandwiched between sheets of acrylic. He lived his entire adult life at his self-designed/built house and studio in Big Sur.
In 1954, on the site of the original Casa Munras Hotel courtyard, a new dining room was built and named the Monterey Room. Emile Norman was commissioned to produce a mural for the dining room, this mural was the first endomosaic. The mural depicts the history of Monterey through symbols, figures, and forms using glass and other objects (cloth, leaves, and small bits of many types) to form a backlighted mosaic set in translucent material.
The panels were purchased by the City of Monterey and were displayed in the Portola Hotel. About a decade ago, they were placed in storage. Recently, MHAA was offered an opportunity by the Emile Norman Trust to recreate the mosaic display for exhibit in Stanton Center. The city agreed to an extended loan of the panels, a display cabinet was designed to be reminiscent of the interior of Emile Norman’s home and the panel display was installed in Stanton Center in the first week of February 2025.
We also have on display other art items from the Emile Norman Trust. Please come and see this unique exhibit.
- Gary Spradlin, President, Monterey History and Art Association
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Casa Munras Dining Room circa 1954 | |
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Auguste-François Pierre Gay
(1890-1948)
Auguste ‘Gus’ was born on June 11th in 1890 to parents Jean Auguste & Elise Corréard Gay in Rabou, France. He was one of five children. Papa Gay & his children immigrated to California in stages in the early 1900s and first stayed with Uncle Ferdinand & Aunt Jeanne’s @ their ranch in Redlands. They then relocated to Alameda. In 1910 the 5’ 4” brown haired & grey eyed Gus moved in with artist Selden Connor Gile in Oakland & would reside with him for close to a decade. Influenced by the older Gile the two artists became early members of the Society of Six group which later included Louis Bassi Siegriest, Bernard von Eichman, Maurice George Logan & William Henry Clapp. He attended classes @ the California College of Arts & Crafts (CCAC) in Oakland & later @ the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA) in San Francisco.
In the 1920 US Census, the 29 year old Gay is residing with his family @ 1220 Chestnut Street in Alameda. His occupation was listed as a wholesale grocery salesman. Around this time Gay moved to Monterey where he shared a studio with artist Clayton S. Price in the old French Hotel @ 530 Houston Street. For income he worked in the canneries & at Oliver’s Frame Shop where he learned frame making (including gilding) & other carpentry skills from Myron Oliver. Gus also took informal plein aire classes with Armin Hansen for about 2 years. Gay remained an active member of the Society of Six & entered works in their exhibitions @ the Oakland Art Gallery until 1926.
Soon he was making furnishings for both Frances Elkins’s Casa Blanca clients & for Effie Fortune’s Monterey Guild. In the January 2, 1933 Salinas Index Journal newspaper we read of the following furniture being made for the priests’ house @ San Juan Bautista due to be completed within 3 weeks: “There will be 22 pieces of hand made furniture placed in the new home, all of it a replica of the work of the early day Spaniards. The furniture was designed by Miss Charlton Fortune, artist, and was made by August F. Gay. The carving on all the pieces will be done by Frederick Todd, youthful wood carver of Carmel. The furniture, which includes beds, a dining table, a library table and chairs, has taken over six months to make. No machinery of any kind was used, and the wood has been so mortised that no nails or screws had to be used. The wood is solid magnolia, specially selected, and has been treated so it will last at least 500 years.”
In the June 13, 1934 Salinas Morning Post one finds this announcement “Of interest to Salinas friends is the approaching wedding of August F. Gay, who maintains a cabinet making and wood working shop in the Robert Louis Stevenson building in Monterey, to Miss Marcelle Chaix of Alameda. Parents of the young couple were close friends in France.”
In H. L. Dungan’s July 19, 1936 article in the Oakland Tribune we learn of a visit to Gay’s Stevenson studio: “When we entered his workshop, quite unexpectedly to him. And he put down a wad of cotton with which he had been polishing gold leaf (maybe it was gilt) on a wood carving. ‘Come on up,’ he added, so we went up to his studio home, leaving behind all those tools with which men carve great things…We went up long rickety stairs, creaking with age. Thousands of feet have walked up and down those old stairs. Robert Louis Stevenson did it many times when he lived in the old Monterey adobe where dwell Mr. and Mrs. Gay. When we finished the stairs we found ourselves on a balcony. We were filled with emotion. So was Mrs. Gay, for her cat had fallen off this same balcony, some 15 or 20 feet, and had vanished, as one might say, in thin air. Later, it returned, so that's the end of the cat tale.”
In 1941 the Stevenson House was conveyed to the State of California & began its transition from a boarding house to a permanent memorial to RLS. Forced to leave his longtime home, Gus designed & built a house on Camino del Monte in Carmel Woods as their next residence. He would spend his final years there creating furniture, carving picture frames, repairing antiques & tending his garden. Auguste-François Pierre ‘Gus” Gay was 57 years old when he died of a heart attack on March 9, 1948 in his Carmel home. Upon his demise Armin Hansen said “Gay was one of the most outstanding examples of a pure devotion to art in all he lived and thought that we have ever known in this community…” He & his wife Marcelle are buried in Monterey’s San Carlos Cemetery.
Exhibited: San Francisco Art Association, 1916, 1921; Del Monte Art Gallery (Monterey), 1919;
Beaux Arts Gallery (SF), 1929; SFMA, 1935; Oakland Museum, 1972, 1981; Monterey Museum, 1993 (solo).
Works held: State Museum Resource Center (Sacramento); Oakland Museum; Monterey High School (mural); Monterey Museum of Art.
Casa Serrano is privileged to have six works by this gifted artist. Displayed on its adobe walls are 2 oil paintings of Monterey’s Robert Louis Stevenson House and the following 4 etchings: Customs (sic) House, Fisherman Shacks Monterey, My Monterey C.M.O. (China Town Variant II) & R.L. Stevenson House Monterey (South Side).
Michael Mazgai
Above photo: August Gay 1934 (Nancy Boas 'Society of Six' photo)
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August Gay at the Robert Louis Stevenson House late 1930's
(Nancy Boas 'Society of Six' photo)
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'R.L.S. House' Oil Painting | |
'R.L.S. House' Oil Painting | |
'Customs (sic) House' etching | |
'Fisherman Shacks Monterey' etching | |
'My Monterey C.M.O.' (China Town Variant II) etching | |
R.L. Stevenson House Monterey (South Side) etching | |
1220 Chestnut Street Alameda, CA 94501 (Gay family home) | |
Local People
Frances Jung Low
The Chinese fishing village at China Point (circa 1853-1906), now Hopkins Marine Station, was the second largest Chinese settlement on the West Coast. It was destroyed by fire in 1906, so the Chinese villagers leased McAbee Beach and built a smaller settlement that occupied this beach until the late 1920s.
The Chinese fishing village grew and spread out along the rocky Monterey coastline as the sardine industry grew. Quock Mui, the first documented Chinese born in Monterey was among the displaced. Quock Mui was a translator, known as “Spanish Mary”; she spoke Chinese, English, Portuguese, Spanish and Rumsien.
A descendant of Quock Mui, Frances Jung Low was born in the Chinese village at McAbee Beach August 3, 1916 and has lived her entire life on the Monterey Peninsula. Following her graduation from Monterey High School in 1934, Frances worked as a fish cutter at the Monterey Canning Company on Cannery Row. She went on to become a bookkeeper for the National Dollar Store on Alvarado Street for 13 years.
Frances met her husband, Howard Low in school when he moved here from Chicago. They married July 7, 1940.
Howard Low was the Founder and Co-Owner of Regal Seafood Company on the Wharf. Frances worked alongside Howard in running the business.
Frances and Howard adopted Carol in 1953 and Ricky in 1957. Ricky passed in 2008, but Carol, also a graduate of Monterey High School, continues to live on the Monterey Peninsula.
Frances continues to enjoy her family, nieces, nephews and friends here on the Monterey Peninsula.
If you have a friend or relative that would like to share their story about living in or around Monterey, please contact Monterey History and Art Association at MHAA.org1931@gmail.com
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STORIES FROM OUR LIBRARY ARCHIVES
This newsletter will feature stories about a pioneer teacher in Monterey during its formative years. The first half of this article is taken from a history feature in a newsletter entitled "PG&E Progress" from November 1981.
Olive Mann Isabell - First "American" Teacher in California
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FROM THE LIBRARY:
Mayo Hayes O'Donnell Library welcomes and appreciates book donations to refresh our Used Books sale carts in the library and at Stanton Center. Books should be in good condition (please no textbooks or damaged material); subject matter should relate to art, architecture, local and California history and biography.
All sales support MHAA. THANK YOU.
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Drawing of Laura Bride Powers | |
The Founding of Monterey History and Art Association
The Association has been a guiding force in Monterey’s vital historic stewardship. The guarding of Monterey’s precious community assets and the preservation and presentation of its historical heritage for future enjoyment has been made possible by citizens who care and give generously of their time and resources.
“It is beyond contradiction that every important historical event in California from 1770 to 1848 began or ended in Monterey, and that the buildings associated with these events are the greatest of Monterey’s tangible assets. Monterey’s historical background, its old buildings, and its artistic setting are unique among all the states of the West, and it is not only its civic duty, but also its civic advantage, to remember that background,to preserve its old buildings, and to build with its historical past in mind.”
Colonel Roger S. Fitch, first President and distinguished holder of that office for 17 years, thus expressed — a little over-enthusiastically, perhaps, but nonetheless sincerely — the motivation and prime objective of the founding members of the Monterey History and Art Association.
Three committees formed the basic structure of the Association — Art, Architecture and History— under the chairmanship respectively of Miss E. Charlton Fortune, Mr. W.O. Raiguel, and Mrs. Laura Bride Powers. By the end of its first year of existence the Association was able to report that, in cooperation with the State Department of Parks, considerable progress had been made in repairs to the building and grounds of the First Theater. In addition,”the Custom House has been sympathetically restored, with proper facilities for keeping of the historic relics on exhibition there.”
Mrs. Powers’ committee also presented a list of 20 historic sites meriting permanent markers During the following year the Association, in cooperation with the Monterey Chamber of Commerce, listed and registered with the Department of Natural Resources, Monterey’s most important landmarks, leading to the development of the Path of History described elsewhere in this book.
In 1934, the Association cooperated with the State Department of Parks to preserve the first French Consulate, which was moved to El Estero Park and now serves as the Visitor Center. Much later, the establishment of the Allen Knight Maritime Museum gave recognition to Monterey’s whaling operations of the early days, its importance as the principal port on the west coast until the mid-19th century, and its fishing industry, which continues to add revenue and color to the waterfront scene.
From its inception, the Association has operated on a broad scale, bringing together men and women of sound knowledge in many fields, intellect, talent, imagination and enthusiasm. Their contributions of time, effort and financial aid — all required in generous measure — have accounted in great part for what remains in the portrayal of Monterey’s history today.
To preserve Monterey’s unique heritage, the same drive and dedication will be required from those leaders who rise to meet today’s challenges.
We will include a biography of Laura Bride Powers, written by her daughter, in our next newsletter. At La Merienda each year, the cherished Laura Bride Powers Award is given to a member whose community service reflects the generosity and commitment of Mrs. Powers.
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Art Talk
On Sunday February 2, thirty or so MHAA members attended a unique Monterey art event. MHAA board member Scott Gale gave a presentation at Casa Serrano about Donald Teague's 1963 painting of Mayo Hayes O'Donnell's bedroom at Casa Soberanes. The painting still hangs in her bedroom on the second floor at Casa Soberanes, but the public never sees it as stairway access to the second floor is perilous. This fine art painting is an unusual one for Teague but, as Gale explained, it was easy work given his long history of painting interiors as an illustrator and a fine artist. Gale brought Teague's preliminary O'Donnell bedroom painting to Casa Serrano, along with a number of other Teague interior paintings, which attendees enjoyed. After the 25-minute presentation and a lively Q&A session, the group walked a few blocks to Casa Gutierrez, where the final bedroom painting was still up as part of a display of art in Casa Soberanes which was hung for Christmas in the Adobes. State Parks opened Casa Gutierrez so that MHAA members could see the bedroom painting and the other artworks. Two great adobes and wonderful art - attendees had a marvelous time.
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Steinbeck in Monterey
January 24 – December 14
Join the National Steinbeck Center for a deep dive into John Steinbeck and Monterey with the 2025 exhibition “Steinbeck in Monterey” opening January 24, 2025 at the Monterey History and Art Association at Stanton Center.
The City of Monterey was Steinbeck’s stomping ground through his childhood and into his thirties. Here, he had some of the foundational experiences of his life that appear in his writing, again and again. This exhibit explores the interplay between living and writing.
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Rental Opportunity
Approximately 1000 sq. ft. is available for rent in the Doud House at the corner of Scott Street and Van Buren Street. This space has been used as office space and as an art studio in the past. If interested in knowing more, please contact MHAA using the association’s email: mhaa.org1931@gmail.com. Thank you.
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MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL REMINDER
Our membership year is October 1 to September 30; please remember to renew your membership to continue receiving our newsletter, invitations to lectures and events, and FREE ADMISSION to Monterey History and Art at Stanton Center.
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Come visit our exhibits at Stanton Center.
Free admission for MHAA members!
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P.O. Box 1082
Monterey California, 93942
montereyhistory.org
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