Editor's note: The Wildling Art Museum provided
source material to Resource Library Magazine for the following article.
If you have questions or comments regarding the source material, please
contact the Wildling Art Museum directly through either this phone number
or Web address:
Carl Oscar Borg, Artist
of the American West
by Marlene R. Miller
Carl Oscar Borg, protégé
of Phoebe Hearst, and friend of personalities like Edward Borein, Thomas
Moran and Charles M. Russell could create any subject in any medium, and
do it well. He was successful and highly regarded during his lifetime, and
received numerous awards and medals. In the annals of American art history,
Carl Oscar Borg belongs to the group of artists who are recognized as the
great artistic interpreters of the American West, such as Couse, Sharp,
Henning, Ufer, Higgins and Berninghaus. Borg belongs also to the group of
artists who came to California at the turn of the century to paint and record
the California landscape. Artists like Payne, Puthuff, Dixon, and Wendt.
Borg's works are included in every major museum, university, and private
collection throughout the United States. He had studios in Gothenburg, Paris,
Rome, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Borg succeeded in preserving part of America's cultural
heritage by documenting the customs and religious ceremonies of the Native
Americans who had befriended him. He used paint, canvas and brushes to express
the unique qualities he found in New Mexico, Arizona and California.
Carl Oscar Borg was born into a poor family in Dals-Grinstad,
Sweden on March 3, 1879. As soon as he could hold a pencil he started copying
pictures from books. Borg apprenticed to a house painter at age 15, traveled
to Paris for a short time, then moved to London and became assistant to
portrait and marine painter George Johansen. He began painting during that
time. In 1901, he sailed for the U.S. and worked as a house and furniture
painter in the 
East, but it
was not the life he had dreamt about and decided to try California. He discovered
Santa Barbara in 1903 on the way from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Under
the patronage of Phoebe Hearst, who recognized Borg's talent, he was able
to return to Europe to study art. It was also Mrs. Hearst who made arrangements
with the Department of the Interior for Borg to live with the Native Americans.
Borg taught art at the California Art Institute in Los Angeles and at the
Santa Barbara School of the Arts. He was a founding member of the California
Art Club, and the first art director for major Hollywood studios. (left:
Carl Oscar Borg, Grand Canyon, displayed at the Wildling Museum)
The West began to change and Borg did not like the changes.
But the automobile, the railroad, and the movies did support him. The Santa
Fe Railroad hung his paintings in their offices to attract the interest
of the tourists. Touring Topics, the Automobile Club's publication,
featured one of Borg's Grand Canyon paintings on the cover. He had a very
special place in his heart for the Grand Canyon. And he asked that his ashes
be given to the wind of this special place.
But times were changing. Borg saw the growing popularity
of modern art. Discouraged, Borg returned to Sweden in 1934 and again in
1938. There he painted people and scenes of his homeland and successfully
exhibited his paintings of the American Southwest.
World War II kept Borg in Sweden even though he was an
American citizen. Very homesick for California, he returned to Santa Barbara
to stay. But many of his friends had died, and he was estranged from the
world that had evolved there. Nevertheless, he was at peace with himself.
On May 8, 1947, Borg painted in his studio, as he did every day. That evening,
he walked to his favorite restaurant to enjoy his favorite food. He was
stricken with a massive heart attack and died in the ambulance on the way
to the hospital. His wish was granted - his ashes were given to the wind
of his beloved Grand Canyon.
Editor's note: See: BYU's Carl
Oscar Borg information, Artcylopedia.com's Borg
listing, 100 top-ranked California
artists courtesy of AskArt.com, plus facts on over 100 Taos
artists before 1940.; lists of individual Early
Southern California plein air painters, and the Early
Northern California plein air painters; Artcyclopedia.com links
on more than 40 artists specializing in the American
West; articles concerning the California
Art Club.
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