Views of "The Pines" Estate, ca. 1927, by Gabriel Moulin, ca. 1927

Summary

Creators:

Gabriel Moulin

Extent:

1 album of 53 photographic prints and 7 loose prints; b&w, 23 x 33 cm. 53 digital objects

Language:

Collection materials are in English

Background

Scope and content:

This collection of Gabriel Moulin photographs consists of one album of 53 photographic prints and 7 loose photographic prints. The images consist of interior, exterior, and garden views of "The Pines" estate, taken circa 1927. The estate, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Philip E. Bowles, was located at Broadway Terrace and Prospect in Oakland, California. The Bowles are featured in some of the photographs. Philip E. Bowles was president of the First National Bank of Oakland and a Regent of the University of California from 1911-22. Captions have been supplied for the container list.

Biographical / historical:

Gabriel Moulin [Charles Peter Gabriel Moulin] (1872-1945) was a leading California photographer whose subjects included 1906 San Francisco earthquake scenes, Bohemian Grove plays, and the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. He was born in San Jose, but his family relocated to San Francisco when he was eight years old. In 1884 he began assisting Isaiah West Taber with Taber's commercial photography. After working for photographer Max Karras for a year in 1891, he was soon employed by R.J. Waters, who had a large photography studio in San Francisco. Under Waters, Moulin worked as a photographer for the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. He later became the official photographer for the Bohemian Club.

In 1909, he founded Gabriel Moulin Studios in San Francisco. This business is credited with preserving many gelatin nitrate negatives and glass plates from this era. Within five years, Moulin was a firmly established commercial photographer, and was chosen to be the official photographer of the Palace of Fine Arts at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. His studio was also chosen to document the construction of the Golden Gate and the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridges, and the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island in 1939/1940.

Moulin's photographic technique is characterized by highly detailed and carefully composed settings. He was particularly well-known for his meticulously crafted home interior photographs. His acquaintances included many well-known, famous San Franciscans, and his documentation of them and their families and homes is a major strength of his photographic collections. Nature photography was of particular interest to him -he photographed California redwood forests including those of Bohemian Grove, as well as parts of Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, and Monterey. A well-known commercial photographer in San Francisco in the 1920s and 1930s, only later was he recognized to have captured significant moments in California history in his photographs.

After Moulin's death in 1945, he left his studio to his sons, Irving and Raymond.

(Source: Moulin, Gabriel.Gabriel Moulin's San Francisco Peninsula : Town & Country Homes, 1910-1930. Compiled by Dr. Donald DeNevi & Thomas Moulin. Sausalito, CA :Windgate Press,1985.)

Rules or conventions:

Finding Aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Location of this collection:

UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library

University of California, Berkeley, The Bancroft Library

Berkeley, CA 94720-6000, US

Contact:

510-642-6481

bancref-library@berkeley.edu

Website