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December 2008, January, February, 2009      

November 15, 2008.  Day trip to Los Angeles to view two important collections of early California art.  A bus limited to 35 people first visited the collection of Earlene & Herb Seymour near the Getty Museum.  A tour there was led by Patricia Trenton.  After lunch at a fine west side restaurant, the group proceeded on to a Beverly Hills collection in an architecturally significant house as featured in the October 2006 issue of Architectural Digest.  Thom Gianetto of Edenhurst Gallery led the tour of this collection.  Cost was $115/person.

December 14, 2008, 5:30 – 8:30 p.m.  HCC 2008 Annual Christmas Party at Bob & Susan Ehrlich’s house, 12 Smithcliffs Road, Laguna Beach, Ca. 92651.  Please rush your check along with the tear-off mailer asap as the event is limited to the first 60 members who respond.  Look forward to great people, great conversation and great food.

Welcome to the newest member of our world of historic California art – Christopher Mount!!!  Mount, your editor discovered during a recent telephone conversation, may have spent much of his career in New York City making a name for himself in modern architecture and design (see press release below) but he has many ties to California.  He has spent a lot of time here; he met his wife here – she was at different times head of publications at the Museum of Contemporary Art as well as at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art -- was married here, and his in-laws live in town.  As for California art -- he has long been aware of the artistic importance of California’s post-World War II artists and is proud to say he is quickly learning that there are earlier artists of substance.

Mount is particularly enthused about the possibilities of his new position.  He first became aware of the PMCA when Wesley Jessup, former director, solicited his help on the Design Biennial, for which the Museum is now gaining a name.  Mount was intrigued with the edifice and its mission and kept an eye on its progress.  He regards Pasadena as fortunately rich and vibrant in culture and museums.  Last summer, when he learned the PMCA was looking for a new director, he applied, and the rest is history.  One of Mount’s goals is to make the Museum better known nationally and internationally through its programs, exhibitions and publications.  Just to mention a few of the upcoming shows: work by faculty of the University of California at Davis (post 1960s); the first retrospective of ceramist Edith Heath; a show of contemporary architectural photographer Benny Chan; the Design Biennial; the first show of early twentieth century Pasadena printmaker Frances Gearhart; 1920s and 1930s work by Millard Sheets; a show of the work of Pasadena ceramist/painter Franz Bischoff; and, on the Museum’s tenth anniversary in 2012, a retrospective of landscapist Edgar Payne.  Some of these exhibits will come to the museum as traveling shows; some will be generated by the museum’s small staff; yet others will be organized by outside curators.  Mount shares your editor’s opinion that California art should be viewed as a continuum, not separated at WWII, and he is contemplating some exhibitions that will demonstrate that, including one addressing the quality of light in California art as well as a survey of landscape painting.

Mount lives with his wife and six year old son in mid-city Los Angeles.  The family collects graphic design, American glass, Scandinavian furniture, and owns some Eames chairs.

 PASADENA, CA. - The Board of Directors of the Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) is proud to announce the appointment of Christopher Mount as the Executive Director. Mr. Mount will start on August 1, 2008. Most recently Mr. Mount served as the Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs at Parsons The New School for Design. He spent fourteen years as a curator of architecture and design at The Museum of Modern Art, New York and is the former Editor-in-Chief of I.D. Magazine. He is also a professor of design history and author of numerous publications. “Christopher’s skills as a curator and as a leader are remarkable, as is his curiosity” says Reed Halladay, Chairman of the Board. “He joins the PMCA at a critical time in the museum’s history. We know that Christopher will continue to build on the successes of the past five years while exploring new approaches to the study and celebration of California art and design.”

“I first visited the PMCA when it was still under construction in 2001 and since then I have followed its progress from afar with great admiration and interest,” says Mr. Mount. “Although the PMCA is a relatively young cultural institution, I have always been impressed by its programming, which is as refreshingly creative and eclectic as any museum in the nation. I look forward to the challenge of continuing its mission. Opportunity and experimentation have long characterized California a fact that is reflected in everything from its painting and pottery to its contemporary architecture and design. The state is currently, and not so quietly, becoming an increasingly powerful center for contemporary art. It also has a remarkable history of artistic achievement, and we hope to further highlight, educate and increase scholarship in these areas.”

At Parsons, Mr. Mount supervised and developed the plan for the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center and the Anna-Marie Kellen Gallery. In addition, he conceived, moderated and curated numerous lectures, symposia and exhibitions, including “At the Parsons Table,” with former Dean Paul Goldberger, which included important art and design figures such as Frank Gehry, Chuck Close, Donna Karan and Michael Graves and the exhibition Anarchy to Affluence: Design in New York, 1974–1984. Prior to his tenure as Director, Mr. Mount taught the history of twentieth-century design and architecture for ten years to both undergraduate and graduate students at Parsons in the Masters of Decorative Arts and Design Program at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. He has also taught at the Bard Graduate Center.

Previously, Mr. Mount was a curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art where he was the curator of numerous exhibitions and author of several publications including, Modern Living, Different Roads: Automobiles for the Next Century; Stenberg Brothers: Constructing a Revolution in Soviet Design; Designed for Speed: Three Automobiles by Ferrari; Projects 35: Stephen Kroninger; and Piet Mondrian’s De Stijl Colleagues. Additionally, he has curated Arne Jacobsen: A Centenary Exhibition, at the Scandinavia House, New York, and authored a book titled Arne Jacobsen: An Obsession with Form, published by Chronicle Books. He has also contributed to numerous publications including Phaidon Design Classics 1–999 (Phaidon Press), New Scandinavian Design (Chronicle Books), Objects of Design: The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and Starck in Words (Centre Pompidou).

Mr. Mount has lectured extensively on art and design both nationally and internationally and has written about the subject for numerous general interest and professional journals including, The Chicago Tribune, Dwell, Travel and Leisure, Vogue, Architecture, Print Magazine, Automobile, Glass Magazine, I.D., Interiors, eDesign, and Graphis. He has been a Contributing Editor to Interiors, eDesign and I.D. Magazine. He received his B.A. in Art History from Columbia College, Columbia University, where he was Joe and Emily Lowe Art History Fellow.

Jenkins Shannon, who has served as the Acting Director since Wesley Jessup’s departure, will continue as Associate Director of the museum.

(from ArtDaily.org.  originally appeared July 13, 2008)

The article below summarizes art historical research on Los Angeles’s mid twentieth century (1945-1980) artists’ accomplishments.  While this period is beyond the scope of our interest, it is rewarding to see attention given to non-contemporary California artists.

Los Angeles Artists have Quite a Past
Suzanne Muchnic
L. A. Times, October 26, 2008
In the eyes of the art world, Los Angeles is a city of the future. Forever re-creating its art scene with new galleries, updated museums, unconventional outposts and the latest crop of graduates from Southern California schools, L.A. seems to be a place where the only way to look at the arts is forward.
But change is in the wind. More and more writers, curators, filmmakers and historians are digging into the origins and evolution of the cultural landscape. Whether focusing on small slices of Southern California or looking at L.A. in a statewide context, they are turning local art history into a hot topic. "There's an explosion of interest," says Susan Ehrlich, an art historian, independent curator and former West Coast regional collector for the Archives of American Art. "The art schools and artists here are getting a lot of attention, and that leads eyes back to history."
The phenomenon will become abundantly clear in October 2011, when -- in a coordinated effort -- four major institutions will open ambitious exhibitions on chapters of the region's artistic past.
Andrew Perchuk, head of contemporary programs and research at the Getty Research Institute, is planning a survey of Southern California painting and sculpture from the late 1940s to the early '70s, to be presented at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Building a case for an alternative to the New York-centric view of contemporary art history, he will focus on Southern California's distinctive approach to Modernism, Minimalism, Conceptualism and feminist art.

"I'm a pretty good example of how views of Los Angeles' art history have changed," Perchuk says. "I grew up and spent my first 30 years in New York at the height of New York's parochialism, when it really was believed that if it didn't happen there, you didn't have to know about it. I came to Los Angeles in the late '80s and was just amazed by how remarkable the work being done was."

At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, decorative arts curator Wendy Kaplan is organizing "California Design, 1930-65: 'Living in a Modern Way,' " a 300-piece traveling show of furniture, fashion, functional objects and graphic arts. Downtown at the Museum of Contemporary Art, chief curator Paul Schimmel is working on "California Culture," an eclectic compendium of inventive visual arts that flourished in the 1970s. And the Hammer Museum has engaged Kellie Jones, an art historian at Columbia University, to assemble a show about African American artists who worked in L. A. in the 1960s and '70s.

All four exhibitions are funded in large part by the Getty Foundation, the philanthropic branch of the Getty Trust, under the umbrella of “On the Record: Art in L.A., 1945-1980.” A joint initiative of the foundation and the research institute, it was launched in 2002 "to document the history of advanced art in Los Angeles in the second half of the 20th century." The institute's principal role is to conduct oral histories and public panels that help tell the post-World War II story. The foundation provides support to museums, libraries and universities to preserve records of artists, collectors, museums, curators and dealers and make them available to scholars.

The Getty money -- several million dollars of it -- has jump-started a lot of behind-the-scenes research and closet-cleaning, much of it still in process. All this activity seems to have emerged from a confluence of forces: a coming of age, globalization and the Getty's increasing engagement with L.A.'s postwar art. Interest in the art history of a place sometimes thought to have no history has been growing for years -- at home and abroad -- as lots of independent projects attest.

One of the fall attractions at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm is “Time & Place: Los Angeles, 1958-1968,” organized by Lars Nittve, the Swedish-born curator and museum director whose earlier creation, "Sunshine & Noir: Art in L.A. 1960-1997," traveled from Denmark to Germany, Italy and the U.S. from 1997 to 1999. Catherine Grenier, a curator at the Pompidou Center in Paris, made a big splash there in 2006 with "Los Angeles 1955-1985: Birth of an Art Capital." Her primary motivator, she said when the show opened, was young French artists' infatuation with L.A.

Although critics complain that such exhibits feature the same prominent figures and reinforce cliches, a fuller picture is likely to emerge with new exhibitions and publications.

In Southern California, the Norton Simon Museum has revived memories of Marcel Duchamp's 1963 retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum in a small show that runs through Dec. 8. Artists affiliated with L.A.'s Ferus Gallery in the mid-1950s and '60s are the subject of Morgan Neville's 2008 documentary film, "The Cool School," co-written by Kristine McKenna. Cecile Whiting's book, "Pop LA: Art and the City in the 1960s," appeared in 2006, and many other publications are in progress.

"Everyone should be remembered," says Lyn Kienholz, director of the California/International Art Foundation, who has taken on the herculean task of compiling "Los Angeles Art and Artists 1940-1980," an encyclopedia of more than 600 artists, galleries, art schools, exhibitions and related events. Staff members at museums and art schools are also busy, delving into their institutions' past. At LACMA, curator Lynn Zelevansky has detailed the museum's rocky relationship with contemporary art in a book about the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum. Across town, Otis College of Art and Design is celebrating its 90-year history in a two-volume publication, "Otis: Nine Decades of Los Angeles Art."

It's about time that all this history is being dredged up and recorded, the curators and authors say. The accomplishments of Los Angeles' artists have been obscured by the entertainment industry and largely ignored by the New York-based publishing industry. But the contemporary art scene has developed on its own terms. And globalization has helped to put L.A.'s leading artists on the world's map. Before the 1990s, when young artists found that they didn't have to live in New York to have big careers, only a few isolated figures -- such as Edward Kienholz, John Baldessari, Chris Burden, Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy -- made the leap.

Global acclaim

The Getty Foundation has always supported local institutions, but its involvement with Southern California art history has escalated in recent years.

Joan Weinstein, the foundation's associate director, says that 2002 was a turning point, sparked by a conversation with Lyn Kienholz and Henry Hopkins, a UCLA professor emeritus who has directed the Hammer Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

"In the past," Weinstein says, "there was a tendency to undervalue the history of Los Angeles art. … people weren't taking care of their records.

"Lyn and Henry … interest converged with our awareness that a lot of Los Angeles history was in danger of being lost. It seemed the moment when we could jump in and do something," she says.

"We had done an electronic cataloging initiative in Los Angeles, which was getting collections online in various museums. Through that, we became more aware of deep collections of Los Angeles art and the fact that a lot of archival material wasn't available. Then we started hearing stories about individuals who had died and survivors who were inclined to get rid of the records."

Armed with a Getty grant, Lyn Kienholz's organization surveyed public and private collections to determine what material existed and how much of it was cataloged and accessible to researchers. That led to other investigations, including an ongoing study of African American artists and arts organizations, and two grants to the Chicano Studies Research Center at UCLA to assess community organizations' archives and start an oral history program.

In the last few years, the Getty Foundation has given about $2.5 million in grants to catalog the archives of 10 institutions, including MOCA, CalArts and Scripps College, which has a major ceramics collection.

Edenhurst Gallery in Palm Desert has moved across El Paseo to 73-660.  The larger gallery allows more opportunities to display works in the gallery’s specialties of Historic California, Contemporary, Southwest, American, Russian Impressionism, European, Glass and Photography.  Other contact information remains unchanged.

A Mary Blair illustrated song book is fully reproduced on www.animationarchive.org.

Jerry Solomon (framer) continues his once-in-a-lifetime relocation sale.  Some examples: Mistake frames and old frames (nothing over $20.00); framed art (from $50.00); furniture pieces and accessories (make an offer); unclaimed art (make an offer).  Everything must go by December 15.  Solomonn is located at 960 North La Brea Ave., LA.  323-851-7241.  www.solomonframe.com.

Check out www.californiamuseum.org.  Its “California Legacy Trails” have several that include historic California artists.  One, for example, is “The Remarkable Women Trail.”

Attention Museums!!!! John Hazeltine’s www.tfaoi.org is interested in providing funding for certain projects that bring information on American representational art to the public at no cost.  It will fund museum screenings of film and video; digitizing of museum texts; and other transferring of material to computer where it can be accessed by all.  For details see www.tfaoi.org/aa/6aa/6aa465.htm. 

Redfern Gallery invites collectors to visit its newly remodeled space in Laguna Beach to view its many new acquisitions.

Marlene R Miller, owner of Arlington Gallery and philanthropist has been named Curator of the Edward Borein Collection at the Santa Barbara Historical Society.  Also, Harold Davidson, author of books on Borein, gave Miller his files, records and photographs, and nominated her his successor.  The materials have been digitized by Warren Miller.

Otis College of Art and Design is one of fifteen art institutions awarded a $130,000 grant from The Getty Foundation to participate in the Getty’s initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in L. A. 1945-1980.  Otis’ project will be A Public Center of One’s Own: The Woman’s Building’s Contribution to the Arts in Los Angeles and will investigate the importance of the Woman’s Building in the 1970s and its effect on the feminist art movement of Southern California.  The research will culminate in a scholarly exhibit and catalogue in 2012.

Congratulations to Tobey C. Moss Gallery which is celebrating its 30th birthday this year.  In conjunction with the anniversary, Moss is mounting a special exhibition complete with catalogue (see “Exhibitions” and “Books” below).

The American Art Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art took a day trip to Laguna Beach on Sunday, November 9.  Brunch was partaken at the Hotel Laguna followed by a visit to the William Wendt exhibit at the Laguna Art Museum and a curator-led walkthrough by Will South.  Afterwards there was a private tour of Mike Fedderson and Joe Ambrose’s home and collection, which features early painted views of Laguna Beach as well as some Joseph Kleitsch paintings.

Michael Hollis Fine Art is now issuing an email Newsletter apprising friends of its new acquisitions and its exhibition schedule.  Contact email@hollisfineart.com to get on the mailing list.

The Automobile Club of Southern California has issued a 2009 calendar that features cover art published in Westways/Touring Topics magazine over the years.  The originals were commissioned from important Southern California artists including Maynard Dixon, Alson Clark and John Frost.  The calendar will be available from the Club after November 10, in limited quantities and will sell for $8.99 to members.

Sullivan Goss in Santa Barbara, more than any other gallery, seems to have made the most use of the Internet in exposing artworks to collectors.  Not only do they keep patrons abreast of new exhibits by frequent emails, but their on-line video exhibitions first show an overview of the gallery then project each artwork individually full screen, just as if you’re visiting the gallery in person.  Today’s collectors, more and more, get information from the Internet rather than driving long distances by car.  See www.sullivangoss.com.

The Bowers Museum’s California Art Council announces the completion of its program to conserve the permanent painting collection of the Museum.  Some of the Museum’s many paintings are on view in the on-going display titled “California the Golden Years”.  Other pieces hang throughout the private and public spaces.  Yet others fill the Bowers’ storeroom.  The Council continues to explore ways to expose this treasure trove of material, including collections of work by the McCloskeys, Frank Coburn, and Evelyna Nunn Miller that have been hidden from view for many years.

Motion picture artist Herbert D. Ryman (now deceased) and his sister started the Ryman-Carroll Foundation, now titled Ryman Arts.  Its website is www.rymanarts.org.  Ryman Arts teaches classical drawing and painting to talented and motivated high school students through free after-school studio courses headed by professional teaching artists.  Students are selected on the basis of their ability and commitment.  Since 1994, over 150 participants from almost 100 zip codes across Southern California have gathered for 3 ½ hour classes on Saturdays at the USC Roski School of Fine Arts.  In addition, the Foundation owns Ryman’s personal collection of art (primarily by himself and artist friends) and recently Joe and Cora Lanzisero donated 285 drawings by Harry Johnson, another early film studio artist.  Sometimes the Foundation’s annual fund raiser in October sells a sketch to raise money for scholarships.  For more information on Ryman and the school, see the website, above.

Albert Bierstadt’s painting of Yosemite Valley (owned by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston) has been made into a postage stamp – 42 cents.  Don’t miss the opportunity to proclaim the natural beauty of California the next time you send a letter.

Kurt Scanlin of California View Fine Arts in Los Gatos writes that he has both expanded his gallery space and is sharing it with two new tenants: an interior decorator and a construction firm.  No doubt the three businesses will find they have much in common and will benefit from each other’s presence.  Good luck.  To view newly arrived artworks, see www.californiaviewfinearts.com.

Permanent displays of historic (pre-1945) California paintings can be found at many California institutions.  These are listed on www:CaliforniaArt.com, “Galleries,” and then scroll down to Museums.  Several institutions have already put their permanent collections (including California works) on-line.
 
(See earlier Newsletters for exhibits that might still be on view.)

Through December 14, 2008.  Keith, Munich, the Alte Pinakothek and Dutch Painting, Hearst Art Gallery, St. Mary’s College, Moraga.  In September of 1883 Keith and his new bride, Mary McHenry Keith, left for America’s East Coast and eventually Europe.  They arrived in Munich in early November.  Keith saw an emerging market of patrons in San Francisco who wanted their portraits painted and, after talking with Theodore Wores, who had recently returned from Munich, Keith decided to go there to study portrait painting.  Keith greatly admired Frank Duveneck’s dramatic, dark and direct style of painting, but by the time of Keith’s arrival in Munich, Duveneck had returned to the states and so he studied with expatriate painters Carl Marr and J. Frank Currier.  He visually studied Dutch art in European museums and admired its manipulation of light and dark and suggestion of melancholy which suited his desire to express spirituality and the presence of a higher power in man and nature.  He returned to California using a bolder, freer, and richer brushwork.  Immediately in demand he ended up painting the visages of many of California’s prominent businessmen, professors and benefactors.  (from the website)

Through January 4, 2009.  Coastline to Skyline: The Philip H. Greene Gift of California Watercolors, 1930-1960, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.  California Scene watercolors by such artists as Millard Sheets, Barse Miller, Emil Kosa, Jr. and Dong Kingman.  Accompanied by a 72-page catalogue.  (Also, see article in American Art Review, below.)

July 11, 2008 – January 11, 2009.  California Landscapes from the Sonoma County Museum Collection, Sonoma County Museum.  Focuses on 19th century landscapes from such artists as Thomas Hill, William Keith, S. Tilden Daken and Lorenzo Latimer.  The exhibit will also feature furniture, photographs, maps and other historical materials that explore land use in the region.  This is the first of a series of exhibitions organized by the Museum to focus on its rich historical collections.

July 17 – November 2, 2008.  CloseUp: Evelyn McCormick, Monterey Museum of Art.  This exhibit of a single painting, Sherman’s Headquarters in Monterey, presents a variety of materials that encourage a closer, enriched look at the work.  Periodically various paintings from the Museum’s permanent collection will be given the spotlight.

September 23, 2008 – January 18, 2009.  Life in California: 1930-1950, Santa Barbara Historical Museum.  Thirty nine “California Scene” watercolors lent by Sally and David Martin.  The show is accompanied by a catalogue.

September 25 – December 31, 2008.  Thirty Years of California Modernism, Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Los Angeles.  This exhibit celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Moss gallery.  Moss initially dealt in fine prints and works on paper (16th through the 20th centuries).  Within two years she expanded the gallery’s focus to include art and artists of California, realizing the depth of local talent after having been introduced to it through the works of Helen Lundeberg.  Over the years she has brought attention to a host of artists including Clinton Adams, Ruth Asawa, Karl Benjamin, Nicholas P. Brigante, Jean Charlot, William Dole, Rupert J. Deese, Werner Drewes, Leonard Edmondson, Jules Engel, Sorel Etrog, Claire Falkenstein, Lorser Feitelson, Oskar Fischinger, Fred Hammersley, George Herms, Bruce Houston, John Langley Howard, Jim Hueter, Luchita Hurtado, Ynez Johnston, Peter Krasnow, Basil Langton, David P. Levine, Stanton Macdonald Wright, Sam Maloof, Harrison McIntosh, John McLaughlin, Lee Mullican, Nathan Oliveira, Channing Peake, Jay Rivkin, Betye Saar, Palmer Schoppe, Peter Shire, Joyce Treiman, Gordon Wagner, Howard Warshaw, Emerson Woelffer and many others.  The exhibit is accompanied by a catalogue.

September 26, 2008 – April 5, 2009.  California Scene: Landscapes of a Changing California, 1930-1970, Long Beach Museum of Art.  Paintings by such artists as Emil Kosa, Jr., Phil Dike, Millard Sheets, Leon Amyx, Charles Keck, and Loren Barton depict the rural, urban, and changing landscape of Southern California.  Although often dealing with heady issues of social realism, urbanism and industrialization, California Scene painters generally portrayed their environments as fresh, energetic bastions of natural beauty.

October through December, 2008.  Specialties of our Gallery, Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery.  This exhibit combines works from the gallery’s most popular previous exhibits along with not-formerly-exposed items.  Included are Southern California scenes by Karl Schmidt, mixed media collages by Alexander Nepote, watercolors by early Santa Rosa artist Elisabeth Hoen, and new acquisitions by Alexander Dzigurski and Victor Clyde Forsythe.  See the website bodegabayheritagegallery.com for images.

October 2 – November 22, 2008.  Milford Zornes, N. A. (1908-2008), Claremont Fine Arts, Claremont, Ca.  Watercolors by the California Scene centenarian.

October 4 – November 30, 2008.  Jeffers & Steinbeck: Habitat of Thought, The National Steinbeck Center, Salinas.  This exhibit of poet Robinson Jeffers and writer John Steinbeck compares their opinions on specific topics including spirituality, rivers, writing, love and animals.  Selected paintings and photographs of family and the California landscape that inspired them both are included to echo and enrich the writing.  (Our Central Coast/Northern California correspondent Harleigh Knott further informs us that Steve Hauk of Hauk Fine Arts in Pacific Grove has lent a number of paintings, including one by A. Harold Knott, Harleigh’s father.  The gallery labels for each painting contain the standard information along with a literary quote from both Jeffers and Steinbeck relating to the image.)

October 14, 2008 – March 1, 2009.  Dialogue among Giants: Carleton Watkins and the Rise of Photography in California, Getty Center, L. A.  Between 1850 and 1906 (when his negatives were destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake and fire) Watkins strove to capture the grand scale of nature in America’s West.  Some of his best known works are views of Yosemite that he began making in the late 1850s, and this exhibit compares and contrasts his work with that of contemporaries Charles L. Weed and Eadweard Muybridge.  His photographs of the Monterey Peninsula in the 1880s are compared with those of Edward Weston and Ansel Adams.

October 15, 2008 – January 22, 2009.  L. A. Unfolded: Maps from the Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles Public Library.  Topographic surveys, tourist guides, real estate maps, pictorials, illustrations and more.  Highlights include a 1791 Spanish explorers’ California coast map; a 1975 Goetz Guide to the Murals of East Los Angeles; and artist-historian Jo Mora’s masterly illustrated 1942 city map.

October 18, 2008 – March 1, 2009.  Space Silence Spirit/ Maynard Dixon’s West: The Hays Collection, Palm Springs Art Museum.   Works span the years 1897 to 1942 and depict his wide travels through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Montana.   65 artworks, 16 photographs of the artist by Dorothea Lange.  The show is accompanied by a 40-page illustrated catalogue.  (In conjunction with this exhibition, approximately seven major Dixon paintings from private collections will be exhibited in the Denney Western American Art Wing from December 2, 2008 through March 1, 2009.)

October 25 – December 20, 2008.  Beginning Collector, George Stern Fine Arts, West Hollywood.  Twenty-two reasonably-priced works by historic (pre-1945) California artists.  Accompanied by a 3-fold brochure reproducing in color most of the works and a price list.

November 6, 2008 – January 4, 2009.  Aldo Casanova: Selected Sculpture, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara.  Casanova taught at Scripps College in Claremont, California for over 30 years.  The exhibition features a selection of bronzes dating from the mid-1950s to the early 1990s.  Intrigued with the humanist qualities found in wildlife, the artist’s signature bronze owls hold both playful and inquisitive expressions.

November 9, 2008 – February 8, 2009.  In Nature’s Temple: The Life and Art of William Wendt, Laguna Art Museum.  Guest curated by Dr. Will South.  Plein air landscapist of the early twentieth century.  First full-scale retrospective of the artist.  “Wendt represented the essential nature of California Impressionism both stylistically and ideologically.  No other California Impressionist so consistently essayed the sweeping, romantic grand landscape.”  320 page color catalogue with a 50-page essay by South.  (from the website)

November 15, 2008 – January 24, 2010.  Song of the Sea: Paintings by William F. Ritschel, Monterey Museum of Art.  Works from the museum’s permanent collection exemplary of Ritschel’s 40-years of depicting the Monterey sea and shore in various lights and moods.

November 22 - ?  Then & Now: Paintings from the past: 100 Years Focusing on Southern California, Frederic Stern Gallery, Pasadena.  Features works by Conrad Buff, Elizabeth Borglum, Sam Hyde Harris, Emil Kosa, Jr., Hanson Puthuff, Donna Schuster, Elmer Wachtel, Marion Wachtel and William Wendt.

December 3, 2008 – May 25, 2009.  Sebastopol to St. Paul: The Places of Peanuts, Schulz Museum, Santa Rosa.  Although the Peanuts characters resided in some unnamed post-World War II suburb, Schulz occasionally referenced one of his former home towns or the villages near his last residence in Sebastopol, such as Petaluma where Snoopy traveled in 1968 to compete in the wrist wrestling championship.  25 comic strips.

December 4, 2008 – January 10, 2009.  George Douglas Brewerton (1827-1901), North Point Gallery, San Francisco.  Brewerton, a graduate of West Point, first came to California during the Mexican American war.  He made sketches in the state in 1847-48 and later used them to create oil paintings and to illustrate books and articles that he wrote about his experiences.  Accompanied by a 3-fold brochure with 4 color repros.

December 12, 2008 – March 8, 2009.  The Arts and Crafts Movement: Promised Gifts from the Collection of Max Palevsky and Jodie Evans, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  Forty-five decorative arts objects selected as the most important to add to LACMA’s holdings.  Objects include furniture, glass, ceramics and metalwork by American designers, including California craftsmen Greene and Greene and others.

January 11 – March 29, 2009.  The Land of Sunshine: Paintings from The Irvine Museum Collection, Wildling Museum, Los Olivos.  Twenty-four landscapes by some of the most important Southern California impressionists of the 1900-1930 period including Benjamin Brown, Maurice Braun, Gardner Symons, John Gamble, Edgar Payne, Anna Hills and Hanson Puthuff.

January 21-25, 2009.  FADA Los Angeles Art Show.  NEW LOCATION!!!  Los Angeles Convention Center, West Hall A, 1201 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, 90015.  Preview on Wednesday, January 21 at 6 p.m.  175 prominent galleries from around the globe.  15,000 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, video, and sculpture from Rembrandt to Ruscha and beyond..  For details see LAArtShow.com.

January 24 – March 22, 2009.  Gallery 32 and Its Circle: LA’s African American Art Community in the 1960s and 70s, Laband Art Gallery at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles.

January 31 – July 20, 2009.  To the Moon: Snoopy Soars with NASA, Schulz Museum, Santa Rosa.  Comic strips celebrating the Apollo 10 mission in May 1969 that was the dress rehearsal for Apollo 11, which landed astronauts on the moon.  Also on view will be a 1/3 scale model of the Apollo command module borrowed from the Johnson Space Center, an Apollo-era flight suit, and the actual image of Charlie Brown that was flown aboard Apollo 10. 

February – April 2009.  James Hueter: A Retrospective, Claremont Museum of Art.  Born in SF in 1925, graduate of Pomona College in 1948, and recipient of a M. F. A. from the Claremont Graduate School (1951), Hueter epitomizes that generation of artists who emerged from the art-rich environment established by Millard Sheets, Henry Lee McFee, and others in Claremont.  For over 60 years he has produced paintings, sculpture, drawings, and photographs.  Accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue which chronicles his life and art.

March 8 – May 24, 2009.  Roger Kuntz: The Shadow Between Representation and Abstraction, Laguna Art Museum.

The following antiquarian book dealers have substantial holdings of out-of-print books on California art: Arcana on the Santa Monica Mall (310-458-1499), Ken Starosciak in San Francisco (415-346-0650), and Muz Art and Books, Sacramento (no telephone; searchable on www.abebooks.com ).  If you know a title, it can be searched on www.abebooks.com or www.bibliofind.com to get comparative prices from dealers across the nation.  Searching a book on www.oclc.org -- registration is free -- will bring up local libraries that have the book.

Among dealers in new books on California art are the antiquarian dealers cited above, the bookstores of museums that specialize in California art (see list of museums above under ‘Exhibitions’) as well as John Moran Auctioneer in Pasadena, Kerwin Galleries in Burlingame, George Stern Fine Arts in LA, Sullivan-Goss in Santa Barbara, and DeRu’s Fine Arts in Bellflower and Laguna Beach. 

Monographs

Will South, In Nature’s Temple: The Life and Art of William Wendt, Orange County: Laguna Art Museum and Irvine Museum, 2008.  320 pp.

Coloring the West: Watercolors and Oils by Edward Borein, Santa Barbara Historical Museum, 2007.  72 pp.  56 illus.

Gordon McClelland and Austin McClelland, Milford Zornes: An American Artist, catalogue for an exhibit at the Pasadena Museum of California Art and Riverside Art Museum, 2008; published by Transcontinental Art Exhibits, Los Angeles.  128 pp.  129 illus.  Watercolorist.

Greg Robinson and Elena Tajima Creef, eds., Mine Okubo: Following her own Road, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008.  238 pp.  66 illus.  Asian-California artist of the mid twentieth century.

Vince Aletti, Bruce of Los Angeles: Inside/Outside – by Bruce Bellas, New York: Antinous Press, 2008.  Early gay artist.

Margaret Rose Vendryes, Barthe: A Life in Sculpture, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2008.  246 pp.  141 illus.   Early Black Los Angeles sculptor, Richmond Barthe.

James Huerter, Claremont, Ca.: Claremont Museum of Art, 2008.  Claremont artist active beginning 1950.

Mary L. Levkoff, Hearst: The Collector, Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2008.  256 pp., 205 illus.  William Randolph Hearst, collector and builder of Hearst Castle.

Themes
Barbara J. MacAdam and Paul J. Karlstrom, Coastline to Skyline: The Philip H. Greene Gift of California Watercolors, 1930-1960, Hanover: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2008.  72 pp.

Sarah Schrank, Art and the City: Civic Imagination and Cultural Authority in Los Angeles, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.  224 pp.  42 illus.

Daniell Cornell and Mark Dean Johnson, Asian/American/Modern Art: Shifting Currents, 1900-1970, San Francisco: Fine Arts Museum, 2008.  176 pp.  95 col. Illus.

John Villani, Art Towns California, in-depth travel guide that takes an up-close look at nearly thirty small and mid-sized communities which have particularly rich cultural cores.  Book signing at the Carmel Art Association Gallery on Wednesday, November 26, 2008, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Derek Hayes, Historical Atlas of California, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2007.  476 old maps, bird’s-eye views, Mexican land grants, humorous maps, oil-company road maps, geological maps, etc. around which Hayes weaves a history of California.

Midcentury
Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Thirty Years of California Modernism, catalogue for an exhibit held September 25 – December 31, 2008.  $25 plus shipping and tax.

Post-1945
Brian Chidester and Domenic Priore, Pop Surf Culture: Music, Design, Film and Fashion from the Bohemian Surf Boom, Santa Monica Press, 2008.  272 pp.  454 illus.

Photography/Film
Richard Steven Street, Everyone Had Cameras: Photography and Farmworkers in California, 1850-2000, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.  720 pp.  149 illus.

Juhani Pallasmaa, The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema, Helsinki: Rakennustieto Oy, 2007.  184 pp.  314 illus.  Aesthetics of film.

The Art of the Title Sequence: Film Graphics in Motion [Uncredited Graphic Design & Opening Titles in Movies], Barcelona: Index Book, 2007.  320 pp.  338 illus.  Post-1945 film title design.

R. Bruce Elder, Harmony + Dissent: Film and Avant-Garde Art Movements in the Early Twentieth Century, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008.  516 pp.

Architecture/Furniture
Michael Boyd and Thomas Heinz, R. M. Schindler: The Gingold Commissions, San Francisco: William Stout Publishers, 2008.  30 pieces of furniture designed between 1937 and 1951 for Dr. Basia Gingold, a German-Jewish émigré to LA.  The works were unknown until Gingold’s death in 2006 at age 103.  Considering furniture a kind of ‘microarchitecture’ Schindler utilized his architectural vocabulary on the pieces.  88 pp.  Many color illus including blueprints and sketches.

Diane Dorrans Saeks and The Editors of Santa Barbara Magazine, Santa Barbara Living, New York: Rizzoli, 2008.  Takes the reader inside Santa Barbara’s historically important and fabulously designed and decorated homes, some with important art.

Therese Poletti, Art Deco San Francisco: The Architecture of Timothy Pflueger, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, Inc., 2008.  256 pp.  258 illus.

Anthony Denzer, Gregory Ain: The Modern Home as Social Commentary, New York: Rizzoli, 2008.  256 pp.  117 illus.

Edward R. Bosley and Anne E. Mallek, eds., A New and Native Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene, San Marino: Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, 2008 [published by Gamble House, Pasadena].  272 pp.  170 col. Illus.

Tangental, but relating to Calfiornia
Dianne Sachko Macleod, Enchanted Lives, Enchanted Objects: American Women Collectors and the Making of Culture, 1800-1940, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.  338 pp. 98 illus.

Carla Esposito Hayter, The Monotype: The History of a Pictorial Art, Milan: Skira Editore, 2007.  238 pp.  265 illus.

Jonathan Batkin, The Native American Curio Trade in New Mexico, Santa Fe: Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, 2008.  336 pp.  152 illus.

Annette Stott, Pioneer Cemeteries: Sculpture Gardens of the Old West, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008.  404 pp.  84 illus.

“Diane Keaton: The Actress’s Passion for Art and Design Are on Display in her Beverly Hills Residence,” Architectural Digest, November 2008.

“The Art of the Poster: A Collection of Hand-Painted Gems Conjures Old Hollywood,” Architectural Digest, November 2008.

[Dorothea] “Lange’s Antecedents: The Emergence of Social Documentary Photography of California’s Farmworkers,” by Richard Street, Pacific Historical Review, v. 75, no. 3, August 2006, pp. 385-428.

“Displaying and Celebrating the ‘Other’: a Study of the Mission, Scope, and Roles of Ethnic Museums in Los Angeles,” The Public Historian, v. 26, no. 4, November 2004, pp. 49-71.

“Chinatown Dreams: The Life and Photographs of George Lee,” The Public Historian, v. 27, no. 2, May 2005, pp. 156-9.

• Journal of the San Diego Historical Society:
  “Artists in La Jolla 1890-1950,” JSDHS, v. 54, no. 4, Fall 2008.
  “National City in Pictures” [historic photos], JSDHS, v. 54, no. 3, Summer 2008.
  “Thomas Wolcott Sefton: Collector, Banker, Benefactor,” JSDHS, v. 53, no. 1-2, Winter 2007.
  And numerous articles on San Diego architecture.  See the website.

“Dialogue Among Giants: Carleton Watkins,” American Art Review, v. XX, no. 6, November/December 2008, pp. 84-85.

Paul J. Karlstrom, “The Philip H. Greene Gift of California Watercolors,” American Art Review, v. XX, no. 6, November/December 2008, pp. 124-131.  Greene, a California resident, collected California Scene watercolors by such artists as Barse Miller, Emil Kosa, Jr., Millard Sheets, and Dong Kingman, and gave them to the Hood Art Museum, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. 

John Hazeltine of tfaoi.org reminds us that his website contains a section that lists videos on California art.

Chuck Jones Memories of Childhood, a documentary directed by Peggy Stern, looks at the early life of the legendary Warner Brothers animation director who died in 2002.  The 26-minute film will have its television premiere on Turner Classic Movies in March 2009.  It contains never-before-seen footage of Chuck Jones talking about his family’s hardscrabble life in 1920s Los Angeles, blending family photos, clips from classic Warner Brothers’ cartoons and original animation sequences directed by John Canemaker, based on spontaneous drawings Jones made during the 1998 filmed interview. 

November 7, 2008, 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.  Greene & Greene: The Art of Architecture, documentary video by Paul Bockhorst Productions, will be screened at the Huntington Library, San Marino in the Friends Hall. Presented in conjunction with the exhibit of Greene & Greene in the Boone Gallery.

November 20, 2008, 5:30 p.m.  Visions of California: The Story of California Scene Painting: 1925-1950, Santa Barbara Historical Museum.  This 80-minute documentary was produced by Paul Bockhorst and is being shown in conjunction with the exhibition of California Scene watercolors on view at the Museum.

September 18, 2008, 6 p.m.  Ilene Fort led a tour of the special installation Merle Armitage: Collections at LACMA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Central Court.  Limited to American Art Council members, the tour was preceded with an hour of wine and cheese.  Armitage was a music impresario, writer and art collector and gave a substantial number of his black-and-white prints by early-twentieth century American artists to the Los Angeles Museum. 

September 25, 2008, 3 – 4:45 p.m.  Illustrated lectures by Jean Stern on “The Impressionist Style” and Gordon McClelland on “Life in California: A Journey Through the Exhibition” in conjunction with the exhibit Life in California: 1930-1950 at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.

October 26, 2008, 3 p.m.  Jean Stern, Executive Director of the Irvine Museum, will lecture on the art history of the California missions as exhibited in the show Romance of the Bells, Pasadena Museum of California Art.

November 9, 2008, 9:30 a.m.  Dr. Will South, curator of the William Wendt exhibit at the Laguna Art Museum, gave a private tour to the Historical Art Council belonging to LAM.  Refreshments were served.

November 9, 2008, 1 p.m.  Dr. Will South, Chief Curator of The Dayton Art Institute, gave a curatorial walk-through of the William Wendt exhibition at the Laguna Art Museum.

November 15, 2008, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.  Conference: Grace Nicholson – Her Life, Work and Legacy, Huntington Library, San Marino.   This one-day conference investigates Nicholson’s influence as a dealer and collector of Native American and Asian art in early Pasadena and her legacy to today’s cultural institutions in the areas of Southwestern history and scholarship.  $25.

November 15, 2008, 3-4 p.m.  Panel discussion for “Seeing Greene & Greene: Architecture in Photographs,” Pasadena Museum of California Art.  Panel members include exhibition curator Karen Sinsheimer, furniture designer John Caldwell and photographer Franklin Cariffe.

December 7, 2008, 1 p.m.  Jean Stern, Executive Director of the Irvine Museum, presents “William Wendt and the Southern California Art Community 1906-1946” at the Laguna Art Museum.

January 18, 2009, 1 p.m.  Janet Blake, Curator of Collections at the Laguna Art Museum, presents “The Life of William Wendt: An Artist with a Reverence for the Land,” at the Laguna Art Museum.

For the websites of the many ‘bricks and mortar’ auction galleries dealing with American paintings, see Publications in California Art, No. 9, newsletter for November 1999.  For the most up-to-date auction prices, see www.askart.com  and www.ArtPrice.com. Auction Galleries that hold special sales of historic California art include Bonhams/Butterfields, which can be viewed at www.bonhams.com; Christies at www.christies.com, John Moran at www.johnmoran.com; and Clark’s Fine Art & Auctioneers in Sherman Oaks at www.estateauctionservice.com.

November 18, 2008.  Made in California, Bonhams/Butterfields, Los Angeles/San Francisco.  Included several works by Asian American artists from the collection of Michael D. Brown, along with paintings and sculpture by mid-twentieth-century moderns such as Wayne Theibaud, David Park, Ed Ruscha, Peter Voulkos, Karl Benjamin and John McLaughlin.

November 24, 2008.  California and American Paintings, Bonhams & Butterfields, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

February 17, 2009.  California & American Paintings Auction, John Moran, Pasadena.

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