Gottardo Piazzoni

Who was Gottardo Piazzoni?

Gottardo Fidele Piazzoni was a Swiss-born American landscape painter, muralist and sculptor of Italian heritage, a key member of the school of Northern California artists in the early 1900s.

Born in Intragna, Switzerland, Piazzoni moved at the age of 15 to his father's dairy farm in the Carmel Valley. After training with Arthur Frank Mathews at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, Piazzonia trained for three years in Paris at the Académie Julian and under Jean-Léon Gérôme. He then returned to California to begin his career and set up his own teaching studio.

Specializing in landscapes in a muted palette, most scholars count Piazzoni among the Tonalists. He sought out the lighting effects of certain times of day, taking a "special interest in full moonrises, the viewing of which became a family ritual. Venturing up a hill, the family would cheer the appearance of the moon. Piazzoni knew the exact time for each moonrise and kept precise records."

Piazzoni's best-known public work may be his 14 murals for the former headquarters of the San Francisco Public Library for architect George W. Kelham, ten of them dating from 1932, the other four painted in 1945 and not installed until the 1970s. After public debate and lawsuits in the late 1990s, the ten principal murals can now be seen at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum.