Marine artist William Alexander Coulter chronicled the life and death of sailing ships on the San Francisco Bay with a prodigious output of paintings and sketches. Between 1849 and 1936 he captured the vitality of the square-rigger era with its complement of hay scows, tug boats, feluccas and schooners. When the long-familiar sight of sails was replaced by smoke from steamers, he continued to paint, re-creating from memory the days when the port was filled with the sailing ships he loved. He painted an occasional steamer but admitted later in life, "I don't like to paint steamers...I don't know them" The ones with sails I know by heart."