Ralph Hammeras (1894-1970) (Hollywood)

Hollywood artist who visited Cambria in 1953 and made a presentation to Allied Arts.

“Mr. Hammeras of Norwegian descent was born in Minneapolis, and has been interested in painting all his life. His family moved to Seattle, Washington and then to California and he studied art in both places. Needing more money one summer he applied for a job at Twentieth Century-Fox studios and was hired as a scenery painter. He decided to make himself indispensable, and later became head of that department. He has now been with the studios for 35 years.

The majority of his landscapes which were exhibited Sunday are of desert scenes, and he is known as the ‘desert painter.’ He has a real feeling for capturing the special lights and shadows on mountains and sands of the desert. There were scenes from the Arizona desert, New Mexico entering Colorado, a Smoke Tree at Palm Springs, the stretch of desert between Cathedral City and Indio, with a carpet of the pink desert verbena, the San Jacinto Mountains, and one called Palms to Pines,” per “Guests Present Three Forms of Art Sunday” and also Mrs. Hammeras read a paper on California art written by a friend of her husband, Cambrian, May 21, 1953, pp. 1, 2.

Source: Nancy Dustin Wall Moure, CAMBRIA (including HARMONY and SAN SIMEON) ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY BEFORE 1960 (Publications in [Southern] California Art, vol. 13, no. 2), Los Angeles: Dustin Publications, 2016

Landscape painter. Born in Minnesota on March 24, 1894. Hammeras studied for several years at the AIC.

He settled in Los Angeles in 1914 and was a director-cameraman at 20th Century Fox Studios for 47 years. In his leisure he made painting trips to the high Sierra and the desert between Palm Springs and Banning.

He died in Los Angeles on Feb. 3, 1970.

Exh: Painters & Sculptors Club, LA City Hall, 1939. 1 PF: DR.