John McLaren (WPA)

 

Peter Van Valkenburgh

  1870 - 1955 (biography)

1938  

lithograph 

11 3/8 x 8 1/2" image 

signed only on the matrix 

about 28 impressions 

dated under the signature on the matrix; bears the blindstamp of the California Federal Art Project in the lower right corner of the paper; date stamped verso: JUL 29 1938 

WPA Graphics Achenbach Collection 65.37.970 

ivory wove Warren's Oldstyle 

published 

California Federal Art Project WPA 

AFAE199 

$300.00 

John McLaren, the father of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, was a horticulturist who was born at Bannockburn, Scotland in 1846. He studied horticulture at the Edinburgh Royal Botanical Gardens and immigrated to the United States in 1870. He moved west to California where he worked on the estates of George Howard and Leland Stanford. He spent most of his life developing Golden Gate Park into one of the largest public parks in the world and is credited with planting two million trees. McLaren was given an honorary doctorate by the University of California, Berkeley.