Mt. Tamalpais

William Seltzer Rice

Mt. Tamalpais is the largest peak in Marin County, north of San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge. The peak rises to a height of 2571 feet and offers a panoramic view from the San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. “Mt. Tam” is the grandest playground in Marin County and offers trails, valleys, waterfalls, as well as an historic theatre.

Rice depicts a sweeping depiction of Mt. Tamalpais, viewed from the flatlands Northeast of the mountain, around 1912. The Douglas firs stand guard over oak trees and grassland while the famous profile of the "Sleeping Maiden" rests in the background. Its Muir Woods has since become a U.S. National Park, named after naturalist John Muir. It neighbors Mt. Tamalpais State Park.

Marin County's coast-adjacent mountain lures outdoor enthusiasts, families, photographers, and artists alike. From its peak, viewers have a 360-degree view that includes the San Francisco Bay Area, the North Bay, and the Farallon Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The environment of Mt. Tamalpais State Park varies wildly and features distinct biomes due to its situation along the central coast. In this composition, William S. Rice captures the adjacent hillsides, sun-warmed and golden beneath summer skies at the beginning of the dusk.

This area is the traditional land of the Coast Miwok who survived the efforts of early settlers to eradicate them. Many members of the tribe are working to re-establish their stewardship of these stunning environments hoping to protect them from development. Most of the mountain is now a part of protected public lands, including Mount Tamalpais State Park, Muir Woods National Monument, and the Mount Tamalpais Watershed.

Tangled myths enshroud the peaks of Mount Tamalpais (a.k.a. Mt. Tam); from the Coast Miwok phrase “tamal pajis” for “west hill”), but one legend seems to find its way into local lore more than others: that of the “Sleeping Maiden,” a near-universally used descriptor for peaks that resemble a sleeping woman, inspiring tales that often feature a broken hearted lover whose body is melded with the mountain after her death from grief. Owing to its profile, seen from the north as that of a woman in repose with her face to the sky and her feet to the sea, Mt. Tam for years was subject to this romanticized ideal, which was incorrectly attributed to the beliefs of the local tribe, the Coast Miwok, but was proven to be a vestige of Victorian apocrypha. In fact, the Coast Miwok believe that evil spirits reside on the mountaintop and historically avoided Mt. Tam.

William S. Rice was born in Manheim, Pennsylvania. After completing studies at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art and the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, a job offer brought him to California in 1900.

At the age of twenty-seven, he accepted the position as Supervisor of Art in the Stockton Public Schools; a position he held until 1910. That same year, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where, for the next thirty years, Rice taught in Alameda and Oakland, as well as at the University of California Extension and the California College of Arts and Crafts where he earned his BFA in 1929.

During the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, Rice had a chance to study and absorb the techniques of the Japanese woodcuts that he was to incorporate into his own working knowledge of the medium.

In 1918, the first major exhibition of his color woodcuts hung at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. Though he gained national recognition for his printmaking, Rice embodied the Craftsman spirit, painting with watercolor and oil, and working in ceramics, hammered copper, and woodworking. He authored three books on the subject of block printing, including Block Prints: How to Make Them, and penned articles on naturalist subjects for Sunset Magazine.