Strokes of Genius : Stowaway’s Boat Ride 50 Years Ago Launched Glittering Career in Maritime Art of America

John Stobart, 58, is a man who turns serious art into serious money, a feat he performs these days in the Balboa Fun Zone between trips on the Balboa Island Ferry.

For his particular brand of magic, Stobart uses a brush instead of a wand, and the results involve a blend of ships and harbors and his own ingenuity, all rooted in a ferry ride he took as a stowaway 50 years ago in England.

When the ferryboat’s mate shouted, “Start your search,” 8-year-old John Stobart hid behind a post on the upper deck, his heart pounding.

The Liverpool harbor before him was madly exciting. It smelled of salt and iron, steam and diesel fuel. And everywhere were the ships. He had to see it all.

But the coins in his pocket were not enough for another crossing.

The boy watched a crewman search the men’s room for stowaways, but noticed the man didn’t enter the ladies’ room, just tapped once, yelled, “Anybody in there?” and went on his way.

So, all day young Stobart rode back and forth across the Mersey River free of charge, hiding briefly at the end of each crossing in a stall of the ladies’ room.

He was a boy from the interior of Derbyshire on his first visit to the coast--an explorer, an adventurer out to conquer a new continent on a tall ship.

That day more than a half-century ago was the beginning of what John Stobart today calls “the marine thing,” a calling that has brought him a goodly dose of fame, wealth, power and--sometimes--a cloudy dose of downright frustration.

Englishman Stobart has become the premier visual recorder of America’s maritime history, a master of his art form and of the art business; currently, his brush is set on one of his home ports, Newport Harbor.

The Balboa Island Ferry glides into the Agate Street landing. John Stobart, 58, is a small man and quick. He bounds aboard, sketchbook tucked under one arm, and surveys the peninsula and the sky overhead. His eyes are rivets and his stance is James Cagney confident. And why not?

The spunky English boy who couldn’t afford a 2-pence ferry crossing in 1937 is today the man whose original oil paintings of tall ships, steamships and river boats bring up to and sometimes more than $150,000 each.

His prints alone accounted for more than $2.5 million in sales in 1985.

His clientele makes up a distinguished roster (Betsy and Walter Cronkite own a Stobart; R.J. Schaeffer III, the beer tycoon, has several originals, and so does Charles Gulden, the mustard king). Stobarts are displayed in the New York headquarters of Dun & Bradstreet and the Connecticut National Bank. Recently, the Bank of California bought his original of the Flying Cloud sailing into San Francisco Harbor.

His “marine thing” that began gestating in the port of Liverpool hatched in 1967 when Stobart, newly arrived in America, was studying the collection of nautical prints at the New York Public Library.

He made a startling discovery.

Aside from a few paintings of Boston and New York harbors and a scattering of other lesser ports, the historic harbors of a whole continent had not been painted.

Stobart was ready for the challenge.

After graduation from the Royal Academy in London, he had spent years painting for shipping companies in England and in Canada. An exhibit of his paintings of ships at the Kennedy Gallery in New York had sold out in 1967, netting $144,000.

“It was the equivalent of a million at that time,” Stobart said.

A continent lay before him, and he seized the opportunity. Becoming what he terms “a visual pioneer,” he set out to paint the lost harbors and ships as they had been in the glory days of sailing. In the world of marine art, the name John Stobart soon became synonymous with vigor, historical accuracy and romantic realism.

But even though Stobart makes his home in Newport Beach for part of the year, his name in Orange County is not exactly a household word, at least not yet.

“When he first walked in and said he wanted to paint the Pavilion, I thought, ‘Well, every artist in Orange County has painted this place. Some have painted it 20 times,’ ” said Phil Tozer, who bought and renovated the former dance hall on the bay front in 1969. “His name didn’t ring any bell with me then.”

Stobart wanted to paint the harbor and Pavilion as it was in 1911. Tozer helped with the meticulous research, then, as Tozer told it, “John went off into the sunset.”

In a month or two Stobart returned with a producer, cameraman and a soundman to film his work-in-progress for public television. Tozer was duly impressed.

“I walked over to the producer and said, ‘Who is this guy?’ ”

“Probably the most eminent maritime artist in the world,” was the producer’s terse reply. His response, by most accounts, is accurate.

How has John Stobart gained distinction and a fortune in the thorny field of oil painting where failure is practically a given? Stobart’s Orange County collectors attest to a number of possibilities.

First, there’s the obvious. Talent. A talent honed by years of personal study and painting outdoors, along with five hard years at London’s Royal Academy.

“The lighting in his painting is so vibrant and real, he takes you right there,” said Mike Willard, an insurance executive in Irvine who owns several Stobarts. “Dazzling.”

There is his subject appeal: Harbors, history and things nautical have a built-in audience, especially with those who live near or in the places painted.

And Stobart’s knowledge of his subject is without equal.

“With John’s work, you can see the difference between the sheer of the line and the several spars at specific heights; John knows all that,” said Harry Nelson, a collector of Stobart and former owner of a Newport marina. “You could sail those ships.”

But the true, real bottom line of Stobart’s financial success is how he manages the business of his art.

In November, when the print of Newport Harbor is unveiled at the Whitman Gallery in Corona del Mar--the print that gallery owner Bonnie Whitman has referred to as “hot as a $2 pistol”--several hundred limited-edition prints will go on sale there and in 250 galleries across the country.

Seven of those galleries, in prime markets for his work (Boston, Nantucket, Edgartown and Martha’s Vineyard, all in Massachusetts; Pittsburgh; Hilton Head Island, S.C., and Savannah, Ga.), are owned by Stobart.

In 1974, after he witnessed many of his originals going into private collections where they would not be seen by a mass audience, Stobart organized his own printmaking firm where he supervises the production of limited-edition prints of all his work.

“Prints are a godsend,” Stobart said. “Kind of like a conveyor belt for cash flow.”

Print production and sales are just part of Stobart’s marketing program that includes keeping track of 10,000 potential customers, editing and writing “Palette Scrappings,” his semiannual arts newsletter, and hosting gallery openings and gallery walks on both coasts. Stobart is starting a framing operation and, in his spare time, he invents and markets new arts devices--one example, a canvas-stretcher.

In between all of this enterprise and self-promotion, Stobart has written a hefty and impressive book on his life’s work called “The Rediscovery of America’s Maritime Heritage,” published by E.P. Dutton in 1985.

Stobart doesn’t seem at all surprised that he has achieved success with his art. He is the first to admit that he never lacked ambition. Or ego strength. These qualities, he suspects, were derived from the early circumstances of his life.

“I didn’t shine academically,” he said, referring to his early school days in Derby, England, where he grew up. “The only course I passed was geography.”

And, he said, frequent canings, for bad marks and for trespasses such as doodling on his textbooks, left his knuckles in a constant state of raw shock.

His home life wasn’t much better. “My mother died having me, and my father and I got along terribly, just terribly.”

But if there’s any self-pity, it doesn’t show in Stobart’s reflections on his past.

“You don’t have to look far to see bad situations,” he said. “You just have to be strong enough to rise up and say, I’m going to change this. And then you never stop.”

One reason for Stobart’s propelled energy was his father, a prosperous and exemplary middle-class druggist, a rather formal do-it-by-the-rules, keep-your-elbows-off-the-table disciplinarian much more concerned with manners than with creativity.

“I was not expected to be remotely successful by my father,” said Stobart, “and I thought that I would make him eat his words.”

After classifying his son as an “academic dud,” Stobart’s father packed him off to the Derby School of Arts and Crafts, a gesture not unlike throwing the rabbit into the brier patch.

At this school John Stobart thrived. He wrote a paper on the history of art that received national recognition, made a quick decision to move away from home and his father’s definition of art as “the painting racket” and survived by living with friends and, as usual, by using his ingenuity.

Stobart arranged with an Irongate merchant to buy the rinds of bacon and cheese--the off-cuts--that were usually tossed in the garbage pail. These supplied his meals for almost nine months.

In his Newport Beach apartment John Stobart was standing at the kitchen counter, eating cheese toast. “I love cheese toast. Reminds me of my lean, off-cut days,” he said.

Every table surface in the room is a chaotic mix of scribbled notes, stamps, vitamins, sketches, art books, nails, razor blades, assorted tools and cans of tennis balls. The telephone rang. Stobart’s stockbroker in New York. It rang again. An East Coast gallery owner had just sold another one of Stobart’s originals for $150,000.

“That’s very nice, Barbara. You did a good job,” he said and calmly reminded her, “but we are getting it back for the show, right?”

The point is to prod the buyers. “You’ve got to have a few red stars around,” Stobart said. “People get very nervous if they go into an exhibition and nobody else has bought.”

The doorbell rang. Invitations to Stobart’s Hilton Head Gallery show arrived for his approval. He checked them carefully, tilting them to the light and fingering the beveled edges. “The gold edging is nice, I think. The script could be clearer.”

It’s business, as usual. For Stobart, that means it’s harder and harder to find time to paint outdoors.

“A lot of people think I’m at liberty to do what I want. But I’ve got a hell of a lot of loyalty to people who’ve believed in me, supported me. I have a staff and an enormous financial responsibility.”

Stobart finally sat down, at his easel. The Newport painting was turned to the light from a clear California sky. Stobart examined his new work with both eyes almost shut. At the easel, he applies what he calls his ruthless self-criticism and ruthless attention to getting everything right.

“Whether you’re painting for yourself or the public is the constant dilemma,” he said. For him, composition is the important element in his art but his audience demands authenticity. “The clipper ship rigging has to be just right.”

“I see little things in it I have to change. I just realized there’s no rigging going down and no braces.” He squinted. “The light is rather nice though. My quality of light.”

Stobart’s quality of light is often compared to the great English landscape painter John Constable by critics. Stobart’s fan and friend, Walter Cronkite, said, “His ability to use light, day or night, can’t be surpassed.”

He takes a razor blade and clips out a dab of paint. “I think it’s way too illustrative, my work, and that’s because I’m trying to be a businessman and an artist.”