Identity:

Theodore Wores was a landscape and orientalist painter.

Life:

In 1874 Wores was one of the first students of the newly founded San Francisco School of Design. The following year he left for Munich where he studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste under Ludwig von Löfftz (1845-1910) and Alexander Wagner (1826-1894).

He met JW in Venice in 1879, and was influenced by his ideas; their association continued in later years.

He spent three years in Japan from 1885-1888, and developed a style that combined Japanese subject matter wtih Western tradition. Impressionist painting provided another source of inspiration.

Thereafter Wores divided his time between his studio in New York and London although he continued to travel frequently, making painting trips to Hawaii, Samoa and Spain. Wores visited the Whistlers in Paris in 1891-1892 before his departure on a second trip to Japan.

His work is represented in numerous American collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC and the San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco.

Bibliography:

Bénézit, E., Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, 8 vols, Paris, 1956-1961; Harlow, Ann, 'Theodore Wores,' Grove Dictionary of Art Online, http://www.groveart.com (accessed 5 July 2004); Ferbraché, L. Theodore Wores: Artist in Search of the Picturesque, San Francisco, 1968; private information.