Some of California's earliest artists, such as Henry Chapman Ford, moved there for their health. In 1875 Ford was forty-seven years old. He had served only one year in the Civil War before being mustered out with a disability. Ten subsequent years of creating art in the cold midwestern city of Chicago brought on further ills. Ford made two exploratory forays to Colorado in the 1860's to find a milder climate, but his final move was to Southern California, where he settled in Santa Barbara.

​

Like many artists who arrived in California while it still retained vestiges of its Spanish and Mexican eras, Ford became interested in recording them. He was one of several artists who produced a complete set of all twenty-one missions, which he sketched in situ, traveling by horse and buggy to each, and finishing his paintings in his studio.

​

Source: Art at the Jonathan Club, Jonathan Art Foundation