Half Moon Bay History Association’s “Coastside Chronicles” Remembers Coastside Artist, Galen Wolf

Galen Wolf was born in San Francisco in 1889 and grew up in the city. His grandparents, Mary and William Griffith, lived in Half Moon Bay and he spent summer vacations with them. “I walked all over the place. I’ve been from end to end of this coast” he said in a 1970 interview with the Spanishtown Historical Society.

To get to Half Moon Bay he took the train from San Francisco to San Mateo and walked over the hill. “I guess I’ve walked the road from San Mateo to Halfmoon at least 100 times,” he said, “and driven it with a team and rode it horseback and rode it in old cars and new cars. I knew that road—every curve, every bush.”

He started painting “…in about 1900…in 1905 I went to Europe for about a year and made many sketches. I came back just in time to get them burned up in the San Francisco fire… I spent the year of 1906 down here [Half Moon Bay]. It was a very happy year. It was the most peaceful town I ever saw… nobody at any time wore pistols in Halfmoon.”

Wolf stopped painting after the San Francisco earthquake and fire. His family needed him, and the young man took on the adult responsibilities of running a business.

He didn’t start painting again until he moved to Half Moon Bay in 1932. He began working full-time on Depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects. When those projects ended he continued as a professional artist, focusing on his beloved Coastside.

In the 1950s Wolf’s vision began to deteriorate, severely limiting him during the last few years of his life. He continued to paint even as his eyesight worsened, however. The Coastside landscapes were so familiar to him, they were vivid in his mind’s eye.

By Pat Keefe

I met Galen Wolf in the early 1970s when he was quite old. He said that he was not teaching but to come see his art. A close friend and I were welcomed to come see him and his artwork here in Half Moon Bay, up at his home in the original Frenchman’s Creek Road, which was quite a little ride back up in the mountain. Luckily we had a Jeep and it was fine.

Galen was charming and the old house was right up over a creek that flowed down the canyon. He agreed to give me lessons. So we would get in my Jeep and he would have his paints, and when we found the right spot he would start to sketch and number certain areas of the sketch. Galen had memorized his palette. He taught me by having me copy his paintings, the way the teachers in Europe taught.

Galen gave me this painting, which is in my private collection of his work.

Galen loved history, especially the coast legends and stories, and he used them in his art. He talked me into going back to school and getting an Art degree which I am very thankful for.

I am sorry that I met him so late. A true artist.