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This beautifully designed and illustrated biography of American landscape painter Arthur Haddock (1865-1980) may make the artist one of those “discoveries,” or “reappraisals” that the art world, especially its dealers, just loves. And if Haddock’s reputation as a painter brings him newfound acclaim, it will be especially ironic since during his lifetime this very intense and private man cared little for such rewards.

Biographer Ernesto Mayans has written a thoughtful and well-researched account of Haddock’s life and painting, both of which had their origins in the valleys and mountains of his native California. Raised in a rural town, his affection for the land came early, and it endured. He was an informal student and lifetime friend of Maynard Dixon, and had little additional formal training. Indeed, the hard circumstances of his life required him to make a living for thirty years as a night ticket and baggage clerk at the Santa Fe depot in Stockton, California. Haddock’s intense and private personality is carefully delineated in the concise biography that takes up the first two-thirds of the book. The author discusses Haddock’s life in terms of various periods or themes, through which the artist’s work evolved – from it’s beginning in the landscapes of the California foothills, through industrial scenes near Stockton, California, to the watercolors of the last ten or fifteen years of his life. With careful description and many reproductions of Haddocks work, the author discusses the events of the painter’s life – especially his emotional interior one, which was often mirrored in his paintings – reconstructing them from his conversation with Haddock the year before he died.