William Otto Emerson was an American ornithologist and artist, a founder of the Cooper Ornithological Club in 1893, and club president. William Otto Emerson was born near Chicago in Union, Illinois on March 2, 1856.
He came with his family overland to California in 1870. After a few years in Placerville, he moved to San Francisco where he studied with Virgil Williams at the School of Design. Following the trend for serious art students of this period, he continued at Académie Julian in Paris under Bouguereau and Lefebvre. While there, he appears to have spent an extended period in Holland and brought back several paintings of his visit.
During the latter part of his life Emerson lived in the San Francisco Bay area cities of Oakland and Hayward. He was a highly skilled painter of California landscapes, still life’s, Dutch and French scenes.
As well as a painter, he was also a noted ornithologist; his collection of 6,000 species of western birds was donated to the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.
Member: SFAA; American Artists Assn of Paris.
Exhibited: California Midwinter Int’l Expo, 1894.
Works held: California State Library.
Emerson died in Hayward, California on December 24, 1940 at the age of 84.
Collected on Farallon Islands.
Retrieved from https://www.islapedia.com
There are 3 sets of eggs in the Pember’s collection and 2 sets in Williams’s collection.
