Paul Rodman Mabury was born in San Jose, California, on December 17, 1869. He lived in California his entire life but did not make his residence in Los Angeles until about 1906. His father, who had helped establish the Security Pacific Bank of California, left him a considerable fortune, which he managed during his lifetime. He was himself a banker and president of H. & J. Marbury Company, a dried-fruit concern.
Mabury was an anonymous contributor to several art organizations. He had long been an art lover and collector, and during the last 25 years of his life he assembled a collection of old masters and American art that was one of the finest in the city and of the greatest importance to the museum, which received it upon his death on January 10, 1939.
William Preston Harrison wrote of him in the foreword to the catalogue of Mabury's collection: "He had given his life, and his untiring efforts in that phase of culture he so loved- the collecting of rare art treasures. Art and great art alone was the essence of this existence and he never varied an inch or changed a moment from that goal, in order that someday the masses might share in that which had always been his own great source of pleasure and enrichment."
The portrait's breadth, simplicity, and strength are characteristic of Johansen's mature style.
