Read this Wildlife Art Journal article

Sails filled at full blow, the good ship Benjamin F. Packard pitches and yaws, charging toward shelter in San Francisco Bay. From halyards and baggywrinkle to bowsprit and transom — the tack of the water steed — every nuance of her history is insinuated.

Yet it is the spirit of the 1883 clipper, unshackled from exacting detail, that the viewer feels as she moves dreambound to port.  Far from the dust of a rodeo ring, Indian pueblo or vaulting jawlines of the Rockies, this vision, too, is an important visual aspect of the American West. The nautical tradition encompasses galleons of Spanish conquistadors, exploratory British flagships, cutters carrying Asian laborers to build the transcontinental railroad and vessels ferrying gold miners north to the Klondike a la Jack London.




Sunrise in the Golden Gate
Oil on Linen | 24 x 38 inches


In Christopher Blossom’s capable hands, a scene rings truthful for its authenticity,  and by execution his oils share company with some of the great narrative paintings in fine art. “Chris’ wonderfully unique marine paintings are as much a portal into the development of the American West as a Moran, Russell or Remington, but from the perspective of the sea,” says Blossom’s friend and artistic colleague, James Morgan, the painter of wildlife, who calls Utah home. “Without shipping, the West would not have settled the same.”

Blossom, a soft-spoken Connecticut Yankee and lifelong mariner, has devoted innumerable moments to thinking...