Beautiful Watercolor Painting by Gene Frances of Palm Trees and Bridge

Beautiful original signed watercolor (potentially also pastel) painting of palm trees over a bridge. Artist is Eugenia Frances Baker McComas (1886-1982), known more broadly as Gene Frances From the private collection of a San Francisco Presidio Heights family estate. Eugenia Frances Baker McComas was born in San Francisco, California on September 6, 1886. She came from a family of journalists where her father Joseph Eugene Baker was the editor of the Alta Californian, now San Francisco Examiner, and her mother was a theater critic for The Oakland Tribune. Eugenia, also known as “Gene,” worked as a journalist for The Oakland Tribune for a period of time. She studied at the California School of Arts and Crafts under artist Xavier Martinez. She met artist Francis McComas through her mentor Xavier Martinez, and married Francis in 1917 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco and a day after their wedding, they moved to Monterey. They settled on the Monterey Peninsula in Pebble Beach but continued to make trips to Europe, Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii, and the South Seas. Gene McComas is well-known as a landscape artist. She died in Monterey, California on March 21, 1982.