Milton David Cavagnaro (January 26, 1913 - December 18, 1993) was a graphic designer, painter, jeweler, creator of 'mass produced items,' and mixed-media artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Cavagnaro was raised in Oakland, California and his family owned a ranch in Jackson, California in the Sierra Nevada foothills where he spent considerable time as a child, an important influence on his later work. He earned a degree in secondary education at the California College of Arts and Crafts in the early 1930s and afterwards studied with Rudolph Schaeffer (1886 - 1988) at the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Rhythmo-Chromatic Design in San Francisco, where, among other influences, Cavagnaro became interested in Asian art. Around this time, he met Mayreece (neé Hagland), and the two married in 1937, having two children shortly thereafter. Cavagnaro taught at several Bay Area institutions (the Schaeffer School, the California School of Fine Arts, San Jose State) in the following years and worked as a shipfitter and foreman with the Marinship Corp. in Sausalito during the Second World War. Cavagnaro's artistic output in several media was often difficult and esoteric, with eclectic influences and a strong streak of Surrealism; although some critics liked his paintings they did not sell. Similarly, his jewelry was displayed in 1948 at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor but did not lead to any lucrative commissions. After the war, he turned down teaching opportunities at the California College of Arts and Crafts and the California School of Fine Arts (today the San Francisco Art Institute) to instead found and lead Design Development Inc. along with fellow artists Ruth Gerth (1897 - 1952) and photographer Leo Holub (1916 - 2010). Cavagnaro mostly focused on jewelry for most of the 1950s, living with his family and operating a shop in Marin County. Like Holub, he befriended Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984) and bonded with him over a shared love of California's natural beauty. In the late 1950s, Cavagnaro shifted his focus to landscape design, having kept his own highly-regarded bonsai garden for years. Gaining some formal training as a landscape designer, Cavagnaro and his family moved to Sonoma County in 1961 and he began work in landscape design.
