HISTORICAL OVERVIEW: The prolific body of paintings and historical drawings created by William A. Coulter (1849-1936) is indelibly woven into the maritime history and development of San Francisco Bay. The life of this pivotal painter of ships and the sea was intertwined from its outset with the events that led to San Francisco’s emergence as one of the world’s premier centers of maritime activity. The timing of Coulter’s birth occurred between two significant voyages, one in sail and one in steam, that began the massive ship migrations that shifted a major portion of the world’s maritime endeavor to San Francisco and the new American west.

On March 7, 1849, the day the artist was born in County Antrim, Ireland the side-wheel steamer CALIFORNIA, credited with being first to arrive carrying passengers to the newly discovered gold fields, had been lying off the San Francisco waterfront for less than a week. Her arrival on February 28 marked the first regularly scheduled passenger service between New York and San Francisco. The steamer had departed New York on October 6, prior to the official announcement of the gold discovery. Upon reaching Panama, after a transit of Cape Horn, the vessel was greeted by a mob of gold seekers demanding passage north.

Two weeks after Coulter’s birth, the March 20 arrival of the fast sailing bark JOHN W. CATER from New York after a 154 day passage, celebrated the first gold-rush sailing vessel to make the voyage around Cape Horn in response to the news of the gold strikes. Soon vessels from all over the world followed. While William Coulter was growing up in Ireland, the Pacific Coast’s maritime commerce was developing in parallel half a world away. When these two forces met, the joining was well made.

Coulter arrived in San Francisco in 1869. After a seven-year career at sea, the 20-year old was forced to move ashore after sustaining a serious injury to his ankle. At almost exactly the same time, whether by co-incidence or fate, the final spike had just been driven at Promontory Point, Utah completing the trans-continental railroad. With its western terminus in Oakland, the Union Pacific became a major factor in precipitating the inevitable decline of the maritime world that had been so instrumental in shaping Coulter’s life.

 For the next sixty-seven years William Coulter would artistically immortalize the commerce of the Bay and the myriad vessels that represented its golden era of maritime prominence. His years at sea infused his ship paintings with an attention to detail that was remarkable. Unlike most West Coast artists of his period who would add the occasional impression of a sailing ship to provide atmosphere in their work, Coulter’s paintings are portraits of immediately recognizable, specific vessels infused with a seaman’s awareness of the lead and purpose of every rigging line and the functional aspects of ship form and construction.

While growing up in Ireland, Coulter may have encountered works by pier-head painters working in Belfast such as Joseph Semple and William McIlveny. However, while Coulter’s accuracy in depicting the elusive technical facets of a sailing ship was based largely on extensive sea experience, it is obvious that his artistic vocabulary was strongly influenced by exposure to the early Liverpool ship portraitists who first popularized the genre of narrative marine painting. As a British seaman during the 1860’s, Coulter would have often visited the maritime Mecca of Liverpool with its thriving school of marine artists.

As with the Liverpool artists, Coulter primarily painted ships in identifiable locations. The Liverpool ship portraits are noted for their repeated backgrounds showing the approaches to Liverpool Harbor. Classic views depict ships off Anglesy’s South Stack, Skerries Reef and Light, and the River Mersey with its distinctive Perch Rock Fort and Lighthouse. Coulter favored a similar approach using the same familiar San Francisco backgrounds for his compositions.

 Numerous Coulter views show vessels taking aboard a pilot off the Farallons, passing Point Bonita, or entering the Golden Gate off Fort Point. His compositions inside the Bay feature inspiring views of the City Front and to the north showing Alcatraz, Angel Island, Sausalito and Mount Tamalpais as prominent backdrops.