[5] In San Francisco he visited the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, took Julie Heyneman’s drawing class at the local Art Students League,[6][7][8][9] and had a short apprenticeship with the sculptor Rupert Schmid.

[2][13] In San Francisco, Putnam was friends with artist and stained glass designer Bruce Porter (1865–1943) and the tonalist painter Gottardo Piazzoni (1872–1945); these friendships would help sustain the sculptor in the future.

[16] In 1905 he traveled first to Rome and then to Paris, where he exhibited six sculptures at the Salon and Auguste Rodin praised him as “a master.”[2] The streetlights at 680–1140 Sutter Street in the Lower Nob Hill district of San Francisco were designed by Putnam with "The Winning of the West" (c. 1908) bases, installed with architects D. H. Burnham & Co.[17] In 1910 he sold his Snarling Jaguar to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[20] Constant demands for new work, especially from the art critic Laura Bride Powers who falsely claimed that Putnam had recovered his talents “by a miracle,” kept him out of the country until his death on May 27, 1930, at Ville d’Avray, France.

[21][22] Between 1900 and his permanent move to France in 1921 his sculptures were exhibited on more than 25 separate occasions in the San Francisco Bay Area, including venues at the Berkley and San Francisco Art Associations, Bohemian Club, California Palace of Fine Arts, Vickery, Atkins & Torrey Gallery, and the Legion of Honor.

[2] Putnam's contribution to the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, held February 4 to December 15, 1915, was a mermaid situated in a fountain designed by architect Arthur Brown, Jr.

[2] The bronze group, which was in the fair's competition for honors, generated positive reviews, with Neuhaus writing that "Arthur Putnam, whose case of animal sculpture is attracting most keen attention, a man for whom the word genius hardly seems too weighty, was awarded a gold medal.

"[24] The Jack London Writing Tablet, considered to be one of Putnam's most interesting, impressive, and personal works, had faded into obscurity after its presentation at the Children's Pet Exhibition of 1917 in San Francisco.