The Artist William Keith
A Scots Giant Among the Redwoods
Detailed biography of nineteenth-century Scottish-born American painter William Keith, celebrated for his wilderness paintings
Description
The Artist William Keith: A Scots Giant Among the Redwoods reveals the rise of William Keith (1838? – 1911), a fatherless child from rural Aberdeenshire, Scotland who rose to an eminent position in the artistic and civic circles of Gold Rush-era San Francisco. Alexander Sutherland’s engaging study traces Keith’s life and artistic achievements, his lively personality and his drive to make a name for himself.
Brought to America in 1851 by his widowed mother, Keith’s initial career in wood engraving was superseded by an interest in painting. He later trained in Europe, being influenced by German Realism and the Barbizon painters in Paris, and studied portraiture in Munich. His major artistic shift came in 1872, when he befriended the conservationist, environmentalist and fellow Scot, John Muir (1838 – 1914). Their thirty-eight-year friendship in the mountains of Yosemite and other wilderness regions inspired Keith’s work as a landscape painter.
Keith’s later years were characterised by cosmopolitan and Suffragist connections in the bohemian art world of California. Although the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 destroyed much of his life’s work, Keith responded by recommitting to his art, underscoring his remarkable achievements.
Dr Alexander Sutherland is an honorary senior teaching fellow at the University of Aberdeen and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Among his recent publications are Second Sight: The Making of the Brahan Seer Legend (2025); Cockfighting in Britain from Antiquity to the Enlightenment (2024); Cockfighting in Britain Since the Enlightenment (2024) and (with Graeme Nicol and George Leslie Donaldson), The Seven Incorporated Trades of Aberdeen: A History of Helping to Shape a City and its People (Aberdeen University Press, 2025).