Sydney J. Yard

Sydney Jones Yard (November 5, 1855 – January 2, 1909) was an American watercolor artist, known as one of the region's great painters in the 19th century, and the first professional artist to settle in the new community of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

After the death of his wife, Yard moved to San Jose, California with his daughter, Bessie. He remarried to Fannie M. Estabrook on July 18, 1898, in Santa Clara, California.

Yard ended his partnership with Hill along with his career as a professional photographer as he became more successful in exhibiting his watercolors and oil paintings in San Francisco, California. In 1883, he had a showing at the San Francisco Art Association's spring and winter exhibitions. In 1897 and 1898 his work showed at the winter exhibitions at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art in San Francisco. That show included his watercolors, Coast Near Pacific Grove and In the Santa Cruz Mountains. Yard continued to live and paint in San Jose until he moved to Oakland, California in 1904, and opened a studio in the Montgomery Block in San Francisco and began teaching. In Oakland he exhibited at the Oakland Art Fund in 1904. There he became friends with Mary DeNeale Morgan and Charles Chapel Judson. At the Oakland Art Fund, Yard displayed six paintings. In 1905, Yard relocated to the art colony of Carmel-by-the-Sea where he purchased a cottage. He survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Yard's decision to move his studio in Carmel influenced artists like Laura W. Maxwell to follow suit.

Works columns-list|colwidth=22em| Sheep Grazing on California Hillside (1895) Sand Dunes and Trees

After his death, his works were exhibited at the American Art Gallery in New York and the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition in Seattle. His watercolors continued to display at Vickery's, the Oakland's Orpheum Theatre, and the Gump's Gallery in San Francisco. Additionally, his piece titled "Hills and Clouds" and will be displayed at the U.S. Embassy in Sweden.