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William S. Rice

American, 1873-1963

BiographyAmerican woodblock print artist and art educator associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement in California .

William Seltzer Rice was born and raised in Manheim in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He grew up with his parents in his grandparent's home on Market Square that had been occupied by his family for four generations. His grandfather, Samuel Rice, operated a carriage painting business in a shop at the back of the property. Interested in painting from a young age, William Rice set up a small studio in the corner of his grandfather's shop. He took occasional lessons from itinerant painters.

After completing high school, Rice began teaching drawing, saving his money to attend art school in Philadelphia, where he lived with a cousin. He won an art school scholarship, and also got a job with the Philadelphia Times as a staff artist. He began studies at the newly founded Drexel Institute, where Howard Pyle was among his teachers. Rice attended classes at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, now known as the University of the Arts. In 1900, Meyer hired Rice as assistant art supervisor for the Stockton public schools. He relocated to Stockton, California. Meyer moved to San Francisco in 1902, and Rice was promoted to Meyer's job. Rice began a personal exploration of scenic California. In 1910, Meyer convinced Rice to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area to participate more actively in the Arts and Crafts movement, where Rice obtained a job teaching art for the Alameda public schools.
He spent the rest of his professional career teaching art in the Alameda and Oakland public schools. He taught drawing and painting, as well as crafts, including metalcraft and leather working. He began freelance writing and illustrating for Sunset Magazine. In 1915, the Panama Pacific International Exposition took place in San Francisco, and he was impressed by the Japanese woodblock prints he saw there. He resolved to become a woodblock print artist. Instead of following the Japanese team method, where an artist did an original painting, who then turned it over to a team of wood carvers and printers, he decided to take control of the entire creative process himself. His friend Frederick Meyer had founded the School of the California Guild of Arts and Crafts, originally in Berkeley and later in Oakland. After receiving accreditation, it was renamed the California College of Arts and Crafts. Meyer hired Rice to teach summer classes at his school. In addition, Rice also taught evening extension classes at the University of California, Berkeley. Rice wrote two teaching texts, Block Printing in the Schools (1929) and Block Prints: How To Make Them (1941), both published by Bruce Publishing Company.

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