Photo Record
Images
Metadata
Title |
Copy Print of Silicon Valley Pioneers |
Object Name |
Print, Digital |
Description |
Copy Print of Silicon Valley Pioneers, 2016. Color digital copy print on Epson Professional paper shows a second generation image of "Silicon Valley Pioneers" by Robert K. Semans. The original oil painting was completed in 2002 and has an overall size of 9' x 18'. The painting shows portraits of 14 electronics industry pioneers set against the east wall of the Stanford University quad with the Memorial Church in the background. Individuals from left to right include: Charles D. Herrold (radio broadcasting); Lee de Forest (sound amplification and sound-on-film recording); Leonard Fuller (radio, President of the Federal Telegraph Company); Cyril F. Elwell (radio, Founder of the Federal Telegraph Company); Ernest O. Lawrence (nuclear scientist, invented the cyclotron); Frederick E. Terman (Professor of electrical engineering at Stanford); David Packard and William Hewlett (electrical engineers, founders of Hewlett-Packard); Philo T. Farnsworth (television); Jack McCullough and William Eitel (vacuum tube manufacturing, founded Eimac); Ralph M. Heintz (short wave radio, founder of Heintz & Kaufman Ltd.); Frederick A. Kolster (radio compass technology). Front row: Charles Litton (invented the glass tube lathe, founder of Litton Industries); Susan L. Semans (artist's wife). See also 2016.027.004B |
Date |
2016 |
Processing Method |
Color |
Catalog Number |
2016.027.004A |
Dimension Details |
17" x 22" |
Collection |
Archival Collection |
Provenance |
Copy print provided by donor, taken from a copy of the original mural. |
Notes |
Notes from the artist via email exchange, 10/30/2017: "The painting is titled Silicon Valley Pioneers. It is an oil painting on stretched linen canvas and is painted on three separate canvasses, each 9' x 6' to create a single image 9' x 18'. This was done to make moving and hanging the painting more manageable." Excerpt from Palo Alto Weekly, Friday August 22, 2003 [https://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/2003/2003_08_22.pioneers22jt.html, 10-30-2017] "A portrait of pioneers New painting honors 14 electronics industry innovators by Marge Speidel Imagine 14 pioneers of the Santa Clara Valley electronics industry gathering in one place at the same time. That is the scenario artist Robert K. Semans created for his most recent work: a 9-by-18-foot portrait that showcases a group of 'pre-Silicon Valley' innovators posing in front of the east wall of the Stanford University quad, with the Memorial Church in the background. Lee de Forest holds the vacuum tube. Broadcasting pioneer Charles D. Herrold sits at a table in front of an early microphone. A youthful David Packard and William Hewlett display their first product, an audio-oscillator, to Stanford professor Frederick E. Terman. Philo T. Farnsworth, credited with the invention of television, holds his TV-camera cathode ray tube. Charles Litton works on his glass tube lathe. Leonard Fuller, Cyril Elwell, Ernest O. Lawrence, William Eitel, Jack McCullough, Ralph M. Heintz and Frederick A. Kolster are the others shown. 'All of the inventors lived or worked in the area at one time or another. The time span of the mural is from about 1907 to 1945,' said Atherton resident Harold Hohbach, a patent lawyer whose idea sparked the painting. 'Each person is shown at the time he worked, although they didn't necessarily know each other.' [...] Hohbach got the idea after seeing a photo of a famous 1862 portrait by Christian Schussele honoring 19 Americans whose inventions changed the course of modern history -- including the telegraph, sewing machine and cotton gin. Aware that the contributions of Santa Clara Valley electronics pioneers were just as significant, Hohbach thought a mural would be appropriate. 'We chose Stanford for the setting because all of the individuals would have visited the campus at various times, and because the setting remains the same,' Hohbach said. To select the 14 men in the mural, Hohbach enlisted the help of the Perham Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the history of the electronics industry. Donald F. Koijane of Menlo Park has kept track of the electronics industry since moving to the area in 1967. As president of the foundation for 10 years, he made its archives available and, with input from others, he and Hohbach made the choices. 'The foundation essentially covered the history of the period Harold Hohbach wanted to represent. We're talking about the era before Silicon Valley,' Koijane said. 'All of these people worked prior to the invention of the transistor in 1948.' The foundation's collection was housed by Foothill College's Electronics Museum from 1972 until 1991. In February, the foundation merged with the History San Jose museum. It moved its library, artifacts and memorabilia -- a collection of pre-transistor technology large enough to fill a football field. Semans, an accomplished portrait artist from San Jose, began work on the oil painting in 1998 and finished it in 2002. 'We started by assembling a group of people together, chosen from the size of each man as we got it from family and photos, since no one in the group is still living. We got everyone together on the Stanford quad for positioning and planned to take photographs. The light was all wrong, so I ended up photographing the figures elsewhere on the quad,' he said. 'I had no master plan and this was the first time I had worked with that many figures. I like to design and arrange the forms before I start painting. It was a learning experience, trying various arrangements and then modifying the design. I spent many hours working with Adobe Photoshop before hitting on the final format.' Getting the historical details and researching all the devices shown with their inventors was an enormous project, and took more time than either he or Hohbach had estimated, he said. One quirky addition to the painting is a lone woman clad in a white dress. She is seated in the foreground, listening to sounds transmitted by Herrold's equipment. That's Semans' wife, Susan. 'I wanted to get a woman in there to break up the guy thing,' he said. Semans, whose resume includes seven portraits for the NASA/Ames Research Center's Hall of Fame, painted the electronics mural in three panels in a dairy barn he rented in Gilroy. [...]" |
People |
DeForest, Lee Eitel, William Elwell, Cyril F. Farnsworth, Philo T. Fuller, Leonard Heintz, Ralph M. Herrold, Charles Hewlitt, William R. Kolster, Frederick A. Lawrence, Ernest O. Litton, Charles Vincent, Sr. McCullough, Jack Packard, David Semans, Susan Terman, Frederick |
Search Terms |
Eitel, William Electronics Industry Electronics Technology Farnsworth, Philo T. Hewlett, William Litton Industries Litton, Charles Vincent, Sr. McCullough, Jack Murals Packard, David Silicon Valley Stanford Memorial Church Stanford University |
Subjects |
California history Electronics industry Murals Portrait paintings Universities & colleges |
Credit line |
Courtesy of Jack McCullough |