`Looking North Towards the Louisiana Purchase' by John Ross Key is the top-left image.
Francis Scott Key, (author of `The Star Spangled Banner'), was Key's grandfather.
Key was born in Hagerstown, Maryland in 1832 and studied art in Munich and Paris.
He began his career as a draftsman for the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. He served with the Federal Corp of Engineers in Charleston, South Carolina and recorded the siege of the Confederate city in 1863.
Key moved to San Francisco and painted many landscapes including popular subjects in the Sierra Nevadas, as well as the Golden Gate Bridge and Point Lobos.
These 1904 Worlds Fair paintings are large, bold and breathtaking.
Key won a medal at the Centennial Expo in Philadelphia in 1876 and was a member of the Society of Washington Artists and the Boston Art Club.
In 1877, he exhibited at least 100 works in Boston.
After the war, he worked in New York City and exhibited at the National Academy of Design,
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and Boston Art Club. In 1869 he moved to San Francisco for a two-year stay and established a studio in the Mercantile Library Building.
While in California he painted landscapes of Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Point Lobos, and the Mariposa trees. His California works were lithographed by the Prang Company in the 1870s.
The critics praised the show, saying that Key's "charcoal drawings are among the best ever shown in Boston- firm and masterly, strong and graceful."
Key died in Baltimore on March 24, 1920.
