Archives

 Sunday, June 14, 2009 – Annual Meeting, Balboa Bay Club.  Dinner.  Lecture by Peter Hassrick, Director for the Petrie Institute of Western American Art, Denver Art Museum.   Title: Taos Transformations and the Art of Ernest Blumenschein.  The Institute, located across the street from the Denver Art Museum, oversees the Museum’s Western American art collection and related activities.  For many years, the Denver Art Museum looked past its regional art history, but in 2001, Dorothy and William Harmsen (who started Jolly Rancher candies) gave their massive collection of Western art to the museum.  Among the thousands of artifacts were not only paintings, but rifles, saddles, and even a stagecoach.  The DAM creamed off the top and gave most of the rest away.  The cream is now housed in the Petrie Institute of Western American Art, so named for Tom Petrie, who gave a multimillion dollar endowment.  Hassrick has been a major figure in American Western art for many years having written many books and articles and having served as director of several museums including the Charles M. Russell Center at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, and the Buffalo Bill History Center in Cody, Wyoming. 

 NEVADA MUSEUM OF ART   

Go to a Nevada museum to view California art?  Yes.  The Nevada Museum of Art in Reno not only has a sizeable quantity of historic California art but frequently mounts exhibitions that display it.  (See the two exhibits under “Exhibitions” below.)  Why?  Well, it all goes back to the situation that existed in Reno in the very early twentieth century.  Reno’s closest metropolitan art center was San Francisco.  In 1916, Lorenzo Latimer, a prominent Bay Area watercolorist and art teacher, first visited the town.  Latimer had been a frequent sketcher in the Sierra Nevada Mountains that lie between San Francisco and Reno (located a few miles east of the California border); that year, while painting at Fallen Leaf Lake, he was persuaded by two Reno-based art students to form an art class in their home town.  Each following fall, for nineteen years, Latimer traveled to that city and conducted watercolor classes.  In 1921, the Reno pupils formed the Latimer Art Club, the first and for many years the only art organization in the state of Nevada.  (For more information, see the exhibit Lorenzo Latimer and the Latimer Art Club held at the Nevada Museum of Art, April 25 – September 5, 2004.)   About the same time Charles F. Cutts, who had run a successful dry goods store in Carson City (about 30 miles south of Reno) for more than twenty-five years, retired and moved to Reno.  Childless, he began amassing a large collection of art, decorative arts, books, and medieval manuscripts.  Many of the paintings he acquired were by northern California artists.  Cutts met others interested in art including Dr. James Church.  Church arrived in Reno in 1892 to teach Latin and German, literature, and art appreciation.  After further study in Europe in the last years of the nineteenth century, he returned to Reno in 1901 where he taught at the University of Nevada through 1939.  In 1931 he persuaded his friend Cutts to join him in founding the Nevada Art Gallery (now the Nevada Museum of Art).  From 1931, until his death in 1959, he provided the personal leadership and continuous financial support that helped sustain the Gallery.  While he originally thought it should be part of the University of Nevada, he developed instead a community institution that involved the Latimer Art Club in its running and University members on the Board.  Most important for California art was his influence on Cutts to leave his estate to the institution.  When Cutts died in 1949, besides leaving the Gallery his art collection he also left it his Ralston Street home.  This became the institution’s first facility.  Over the years, especially since 1975, the Museum has expanded exponentially, moving three times to larger facilities and accepting significant gifts to the permanent collection to supplement the initial donation from Cutts.  Many of the new donations were also by California artists.  A few of the historic California artists in the collection are Lorenzo Latimer, Edwin Deakin, Minerva Pierce, Roi Partridge, Thomas Moran, William F. Jackson, Elsie Palmer Payne, and photographer Edward Weston.  It is hoped that the Museum may soon put some of its permanent collection on line so that we may all share it.  In the meantime, a trip to Reno to view the Museum’s two temporary exhibitions might be worth while.  (from various websites)  The Nevada museum also hosted the traveling exhibitions: Edwin Deakin: Painter of the Picturesque that circulated in 2008 and Yosemite: Art of an American Icon, that circulated in 2007.

 Emails from commercial art galleries inform us of new acquisitions.  See American Eagle Fine Art (at americaneaglefineart.com) for works by Sammons, Grimm, Cromwell, Valentien, William S. Rice, and Fritz Kocher.  An Adamson-Duvannes mailing reproduced a figural by Mischa Askenazy.  CaliforniaWatercolor.com has acquired works by Dong Kingman, Hardie Gramatky and Barse Miller, to name a few.   William A. Karges Fine Art has issued a four-fold mailer with 14 color reproductions including works by Maynard Dixon and Jessie Arms Botke AND has sent an email with images by Marion Wachtel, Edgar Payne, Louis Siegriest, Dana Bartlett, Franz Bischoff and Dedrick Stuber.  Conner-Rosenkranz of New York sent out a 3-fold brochure reproducing sculpture by two California artists: Jacques Schnier and Richmond Barthe.  Josh Hardy Galleries has new works by Hanson Puthuff, Armin Hansen, Percy Gray, Franz Bischoff, Francis McComas and Jessie Arms Botke.  Edenhurst Gallery offers top works by Edgar Payne, Maynard Dixon, Thomas L. Hunt, Paul Starrett Sample, Theodore Wores, Agnes Pelton, George Brandriff, Helen Lundeberg, William V. Cahill, Matteo Sandona, Edouard Vysekal, G. Redmond, Robert Gilbert, Maurice Logan, and Arthur Durston..

 Congratulations to Edenhurst Gallery that will be opening a second location in Laguna Beach in July 2009.  The address is 305 North Coast Highway, Suite F, Laguna Beach, Ca. 92651.  Edenhurst, which currently operates a large and elegant space in Palm Desert, is known for the high aesthetic quality of its offerings.

 D Wigmore Fine Art, Inc. in New York, usually doesn’t advertise works by California artists, but in the June issue of American Art Review she reproduces Paul Sample’s watercolors California Goldmine and Loading Cargo.  The Cooley Gallery in Old Lyme, Connecticut reproduces an East Coast view by Arthur Merton Hazard.

 Rich Reitzell, a descendant of early twentieth-century figure and landscape painter Jean Mannheim, is putting together a biography and is trying to locate as many Mannheim paintings as possible.  Do you own a Mannheim or know of one in an obscure location or collection?  If so, please contact Rich at rwreitzell@aol.com or 805-529-8328.  He will also be at the HCC annual dinner and would enjoy meeting you personally.

 Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery Monthly for May 2009 contains an article “Palm Desert Museum Features Three Desert Painters” by Ann Japenga.  See www.bbhgallery.com/BBH_Gallery_Monthly.htm.  “Palm Desert was a hang-out and a refuge for the often-broke early desert artists.  Bill Bender camped under an Ironwood tree here, and Fred Chisnall sold paintings out of his truck.”  The third artist is Sally Ward.  “The museum, housed in an old firehouse, is tucked among elite boutiques and galleries on El Paseo.”  The Monthly also contains a biography of Florence Upson Young who was active in Alhambra, California.

 The Pasadena Society of Artists formed in 1925 but is still active and has its own website pasadenasocietyofartists.org.  One page details a history of the organization and other pages give biographical information on the Society’s member artists through the years.

 The Bowers Museum’s California Arts Council met for its annual luncheon on March 8, 2009.  Lecturer was Janet Blake of the Laguna Art Museum who helped curate the recent William Wendt retrospective.  On view were the Bowers’ two Wendt paintings, which were recently conserved with funds provided by the Council.  The group continues to conserve and display the museum’s art collection, which was formerly relegated to storage.

 On June 13, 2009 the Bowers’ California Arts Council will make a day trip to Rancho Los Alamitos Historic Ranch and Gardens in Long Beach.  The 28,500 acre rancho was created in 1806 as one of five parcels going to heirs of the original rancho owner Manuel Nieto.  The Council’s interest is in the California plein air paintings that decorate the ranch house.  These were collected by one of the owners, Florence (Mrs. Fred) Bixby after 1906.  Included in her collection were works by Hanson Puthuff, Marie Kendall, Hardy Gramatky, and Milford Zornes as well as Western artists Frank Tenney Johnson, Maynard Dixon and Edward Borein.  She also owned work by Loren Barton, Frank Benson, Paul DeLongpre, and Gardner Symons not to overlook several East Coast American artists of the early twentieth century.  In 1968 the house and gardens were given to the City of Long Beach to maintain and develop as a regional historic and educational facility.  Most of the original paintings were distributed to heirs but several still hang in the house.  Of those in the hands of heirs, some have been “returned” in the form of digital reproductions so that the house appears furnished as it was in the early twentieth century.   Sculptures by Harriet Frishmuth and Haig Patigian decorate the grounds.  The Bowers’ Council will view the artwork and the gardens (also developed by Florence Bixby) and partake of a buffet in the patio.

 The American Art Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art made a day-trip to Orange County on Saturday, May 16, to view two exhibits:  Illumination: The Paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe, Agnes Pelton, Agnes Martin and Florence Pierce at the Orange County Museum of Art and also The Good Life, California Watercolors, 1930-1950 at the Irvine Museum.

 Josh Hardy Galleries of Carmel and San Francisco has issued its first Quarterly, v. 1, issue 1, May 2009.  It contains thumbnail photos of selected paintings on view at both locations along with several articles about California art.  For further information see www.hardygalleries.com. 

 On Thursday, May 7, 2009, 5 p.m. Ruth Peabody’s Boy and Dog sculpture was re-installed at Jahraus Park in Laguna Beach across from the Laguna Art Museum.  The 1935 bronze, the city’s oldest piece of public art, recently underwent a $26,000 conservation.  Speakers at the re-dedication party at Marion Meyer Contemporary Art included LAM Director Bolton Colburn.  At the museum, on the lower level, several works by Peabody from the permanent collection were on view.  Peabody came to Laguna Beach in 1924 with her artist mother Elanor Colburn.  She painted, taught art, and sculpted.

 June 13, 2009, 10 a.m.  The Ninth Annual Antique and Contemporary Tile Sale, California Heritage Museum, Santa Monica.  The sale brings together specialist dealers and craftsmen.  Tickets are $5, but $10 early-birds can gain access at 9 a.m.

 Stone Houses of the San Fernando Valley is the name given to a small but interesting collection of archival papers housed in Special Collections Oviatt Library at California State University Northridge.  These papers, donated by Albert Knight, consist of his notes, news clippings, interviews and photographs for his manuscript “Stonehurst – a 1920s Stone House Neighborhood”.  Stonehurst is a housing development in Sun Valley or the Shadow Hills area along the south edge of the Tujunga Valley in the NE part of the San Fernando Valley.  The houses in the area were constructed from the native stone debris.  For finding aid, see library.csun.edu/Collections/SCA/SC/FG/fdgds2f.html.

 The Laguna Art Museum Members’ Magazine 2009 reproduces some recent acquisitions including the watercolor Approaching Storm by Santa Barbara Regionalist Standish Backus; Cluster of Balls by modernist animator Oskar Fischinger; andUntitled by modernist movie-artist Jules Engel.

 Robert Lee Eskridge (1891-1975) who painted in California, Washington and Hawaii, left a number of watercolors that have come into the hands of Sherburne Antiques & Fine Art, Inc. in Olympia, Washington.  Ten depict Nevada (mostly Virginia City, 1956); four are of Portugal; one is of Union Square, San Francisco.  There are other scenes.  360-357-9177.  Contact  Sherjean@netscape.net.

 On Saturday, May 2, 2009, the Historical Art Council of the Laguna Art Museum made a one-day trip to Palm Springs.  It visited three private collections.  The first was that of Earl and Barbara Hoover who live in a home built in the 1920s and who collect early Western American art and artifacts.  At the home of Rick Silver and Robert Hayden the group viewed paintings and sculpture by Los Angeles artists from the 1950s to the present including John McLaughlin, Lorser Feitelson, Emerson Woelffer, Peter Krasnow, and Roger Kuntz.  Final stop was a visit with Mark and Jan Hilbert who live in a Spanish Revival home built in 1929 located on an acre of grounds.  The Hilberts have restored the house to its original look using period Spanish furniture, Mexican ceramics from the 1920s and 1930s and oil paintings and watercolors by such artists as Hernando Villa, Millard Sheets, Joseph Mora, Rex Brandt, and Alfredo Ramos Martinez.

 A gouache-on-board painting measuring 9 x 10 in. donated to the Goodwill and posted for auction on its website (shopgoodwill.com) turned out to be a real work by Maynard Dixon, according to two appraisers.  The item, on which the bidding closed April 13, fetched more than $35,000 when astute collectors vied for it.  “Blackfoot Indian” 1917 is believed to be part of a group commissioned by the Great Northern Railroad Co., which prompted Dixon to travel to a Blackfoot Indian camp near Montana’s Glacier National Park to draw and paint.  See more Salt Lake Tribune, April 12, 2009 (www.sltrib.com).

 Ralph Love paintings are being offered in Calistoga at the Lee Youngman Gallery.  Love (1907-1992) was active primarily in Southern California where he worked also as a pastor and evangelist.  He studied with Sam Hyde Harris and Edgar Payne and lived in various towns including Yucaipa and Temecula.  Many of his paintings depict Arizona, and in the 1960s one was reproduced on the cover of Arizona Highways.  Youngman is the daughter of the artist.  For more information, view www.leeyoungmangalleries.com.

 Art by historic and contemporary artists of California’s Central Coast is being collected by the San Luis Obispo Art Center, so writes Gordon Fuglie, formerly associated with the Laband Art Gallery in Los Angeles and now Curator of Exhibitions and Collections at the SLO Art Center.  The collection is just in its nascent phase but Fuglie invites gifts of works by historic artists.  See www.SLOArtCenter.org. 

Permanent displays of historic (pre-1945) California paintings can be found at many California institutions.  These are listed on www:CaliforniaArt.com in the “Galleries” section (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 July 26, 2009.  Nicholas S. Firfires: Views from his Saddle, Santa Barbara Historical Museum.  Firfires (1917-1990) studied art in Los Angeles at Art Center School and Otis but spent most of his career in Santa Barbara painting themes of the American West.  This is the first museum exhibition of his work and it was guest curated by Marlene R. Miller, a trustee of the Museum and owner of Arlington Gallery in Santa Barbara.

 November 7, 2008 – August 16, 2009.  Modernism and the Wichner Collection, Long Beach Museum of Art.  Fifty of the works in this show come from the Museum’s collection and are by such well-known California modernists as Charles and Ray Eames, Helen Lundeberg, John McLaughlin, Karl Benjamin, and Hans Burkhardt.  (The Wichner Collection focuses on European and East Coast American modern paintings.)   While the particular responses to modernism by all the artists in the show vary, the artists are tied by their conscious break from representational art, their interest in experimentation, and their desire to create universal, abstract forms.  In addition, many of the artists were influenced by twentieth century advances in science and technology, including discoveries in the study of molecules and atoms, space exploration, and the use of new materials, such as aluminum.  Though primarily made up of paintings, the exhibition also includes sculpture, ceramics, drawings, furniture, prints and glass.  (from LBMA website)

 January 29 – July 26, 2009.  A Legacy Set in Stone: Santa Barbara Stone Architecture, 1870-1940, Casa de la Guerra, 15 East De La Guerra Street, Santa Barbara.  A display of research and photos used by the Santa Barbara Conservancy in its forthcoming book Stone Architecture in Santa Barbara.  Building with river boulders was fashionable around the turn of the twentieth century.

 March 21 – December 31, 2009.  Dunite and Halcyon Exhibit, Odd Fellows Hall (of the South County Historical Society), Arroyo Grande, Ca.  During the 1930s, the vast Oceano sand dunes at Pismo State Beach attracted many creative artists, including Edward Weston.  The exhibit, pronounced dune-ite, tells the story of a community of bohemians, artists, writers, mystics, hoboes and hermits who lived rent-free in the dunes in driftwood shacks and other makeshift shelters during the Great Depression and after.  Nudists, vegetarians, psychics and mystics ate the local clams, drank bootleg whiskey and feasted on crates of sometimes stolen vegetables from the Oceano growers.  Halcyon was the nearby retreat run by the Theosophical Society.  (from the San Luis Obispo Tribune, March 15, 2009)  (See related book and lectures, below.)

 March 28 – June 28, 2009.  Paul Outerbridge: New Color Photographs from Mexico and California, 1948 – 1955, Los Angeles Public Library, First Floor Galleries.  Recently discovered works in the exquisite tri-carbro-color print process of which Outerbridge was a master.  One work shows Outerbridge relaxing in a lounge chair at an Oceanside resort c. 1950.  (See also the Outerbridge exhibit at the Getty, below.)

 March 28 – June 28, 2009.  Carl Sammons: California Impressionist Landscapes from the Donna Walsh Sumner Collection, Grace Hudson Museum, Ukiah, Ca.  Seventy-nine oil and pastel landscapes of California made between 1920 and 1960.  Sammons felt that painting was an act of creation expressing the artist’s unique interpretation of God’s handiwork.  Most are painted in the California Impressionist style that he adopted after arriving in the state from the Midwest.  (Organized by Hearst Art Gallery, St. Mary’s College of California, Moraga.) 

 March 28 – July 2, 2009.  Sam Maloof: Grace and Grain, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, Ca.  Retrospective of Maloof’s sculptural yet ergonomic woodwork from the past 50 years. 

 March 29, 2009 – January 10, 2010.  Masters of Mid-Century California Modernism: Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman, Mingei International Museum, Balboa Park, San Diego, Ca.  Retrospective of the works of Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman and their 50-year collaborative partnership in creating ceramics, textiles, carved wood, enamels, and mosaics.  “The couple established their first company, Jenev Design Studio, in Los Angeles in 1953, and in 1956 Jenev Design Studio became ERA Industries, Inc.”  The studio produced home accessories, furniture and architectural elements.  “Perhaps unique to the Ackermans was their ability to move fluidly between abstract modernism and figurative stylization…. The years 1950 to 1975 saw Los Angeles become a major center of modernist design, particularly in home furnishings.”  The Ackermans exhibited nationally and were included in every annual exhibition of California Design (1954-1976) held at the former Pasadena Art Museum.  Many published articles attest to their importance.  (from the Mingei website)

 March 31 – August 9, 2009.  Paul Outerbridge: Command Performance, Getty Center.  Over 100 photographs from all stages of the photographer’s career.  Outerbridge worked in all aspects of the photography world, making photographs for advertising and for commercial magazines and making art photos of nudes.  He also worked in the film world.  When color photography was developed in the form of Carbro color, Outerbridge proved the medium had fine art possibilities over and above its commercial potential.  Outerbridge, who spent much of his career on America’s East Coast and in Europe, retired to California (Laguna Beach) in 1943 where he continued photographing and writing about photography until his death in 1958.  (from the Getty website)  (See also the Outerbridge exhibit at the Los Angeles Public Library, above.)

 April 2 – June 21, 2009.  Crossings: 10 Views of America’s Concentration Camps, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles.   The exhibit juxtaposes art created during World War II alongside recent work to demonstrate various responses and insights into this dark episode in American history.  Among the war-era artists represented are Benji Okubo, Hisako Hibi, Toyo Miyatake, and Mine Okubo.

 April 2 – June 28, 2009.  Nell Brooker Mayhew: In Quiet Communion, Sullivan Goss: An American Gallery, Santa Barbara.  Prints incorporating lyrical lines and adventurous color subjectively interpret California’s landscape and its Spanish missions.

 April 4 – May 16, 2009.  Gallery Selections: Early Women Artists, George Stern Fine Arts, West Hollywood.  A two-fold brochure reproduces 15 paintings in color by artists such as Donna Schuster, Jessie Arms Botke, Marion Wachtel and Anne Bremer.

 April 4 – June 7, 2009.  Looking Forward, Looking Back: The Collection in Context, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno.  Approximately 100 paintings (many by California artists) and Native American baskets from the Museum’s permanent collection.  First major exhibit in ten years to utilize the Museum’s permanent collection.  Demonstrates the Museum’s commitment to acquiring works that reflect man and nature’s effect on the environment by grouping art into themes such as topography and mapping, nuclear, water and land use, American Indian culture, and mining in the West.  The Nevada Museum of Art owns approximately 2000 works of art.  (See the essay on the Museum, above.)

 April 4 – July 19, 2009.  Forever Fullerton: Julius Shulman, Fullerton Museum Center, Fullerton, Ca.  Photographs of Fullerton houses (interior and exterior) made in the 1950s and 1960s.  The images were lent by the Getty Research Library.

 April 16 – May 30, 2009.  Influences and the Influenced, A Tribute to Don Worth, Scott Nichols Gallery, San Francisco.  Photographs by Ansel Adams, Ruth Bernhard, Wynn Bullock, Imogen Cunningham, Brett Weston, Edward Weston, Jack Welpott and Minor White.   Worth was a post-1950s photographer in the Bay Area.

 April 17 – May 31, 2009.  Highlights of the SCM Collections, Sonoma County Museum, Santa Rosa.  The SCM collection numbers approximately 20,000 items including 4000 photographs, 700 paintings, drawings and prints, over 1000 examples of local metalwork and metal sculpture, 1000 textiles and clothing items, 500 ceramic and glass objects, and 300 wood artifacts including furniture and sculpture.  The remainder of the collection consists of archival documents and physical objects related to history, science, and daily living .  This exhibition will feature examples of the museum’s art and artifacts.

 April 17 – June 14, 2009.  Ansel Adams: Masterworks, Sonoma County Museum, Santa Rosa.  A traveling exhibition of 48 photographs from the Museum Set, a portfolio hand selected by Adams to represent his best work.  On view downstairs are Adams’ cameras and a video documentary describing Adams’ career and technical aspects of his work.

 April 17 – July 5, 2009.  Wine Country Posters: Collection of George and Denise Rose, Sonoma County Museum, Santa Rosa.  Sonoma County early printmaking!  “The Korbel Brothers established a successful lithography company in San Francisco in the 1870s, initially for the purpose of adorning redwood cigar boxes.  In the 1880s, they turned their attention to the Russian River wines and brandies that still bear their name ….  It was not long after the Korbel’s foray into printing that advances in technology allowed for the production of large-format, full-color pictures in great quantities at low cost, further expanding the use of [printing to] posters for advertisement and promotion.  Many of the early wine related prints emphasized imagery of the harvest or grape crush, such as Paul Frenzeny’s well-known image created for Harper’s Weekly in 1878 titled “The Vintage in California.”  The use of imagery or descriptions of California as an agricultural paradise were frequently employed by regional promoters seeking to draw people west.  … Early wine poster designs also frequently evoked scenes of Arcadian pleasure seeking and leisure…  The printing advances of the nineteenth century and early efforts to create a visual language of wine are tiny in comparison to the massive output of recent years.  The contemporary wine country posters of the 1980s and 1990s, and running up through today, utilize the talents of hundreds of graphic artists, painters and photographers, many from the San Francisco Bay area.  As wine has become more popular across the country, posters have become an integral part of many winery marketing and event promotions.  This exhibit [includes] many media from photography to watercolors, oil paintings, and pen-and-ink drawings.”  (from www.sonomacountymuseum.org)

 April 18 – June 27, 2009.  Early California Art 1880-1950, Kerwin Galleries, Burlingame.  This year’s annual exhibit includes work by A. D. O. Browere, Norton Bush, Alice Chittenden, Edwin Deakin, A. H. Gilbert, William Keith, Erle Loran, Xavier Martinez, Otis Oldfield, E. Payne, G. Post, C. Sammons, G. G. Symons and Milford Zornes, among others.  See www.kerwingalleries.com.

 April 18 - ?, 2009.  Julius Shulman: Early Photographs from the Bay Area, Robert Berman Gallery, 1632 Market Street, San Francisco.  Twelve black and white images, most of which have never before been exhibited.  They were taken in the mid 1930s when Shulman studied at UC Berkeley and resided in San Francisco.

 April 24 - ?, 2009.  Women Painters of California, Women Artists from our Collection, Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery, Bodega Bay, California.  Among the exhibitors are Henrietta Riddell Fish, Una Gray, Grace Myrtle Allison Griffith, Anna Hills, Kathi Hilton, Thelma Houston, Orpha Klinker, Elizabeth Schleussner, Lydia Vercinsky, Nell Walker Warner, Sylvia Winslow, and Florence Upson Young.  Reproductions of their work appear on www.bbhgallery.com/BBHGallery_Show_Women_Artists_of_California.htm.

 April 28, 2009.  Post-Meltdown Sale, North Point Gallery, San Francisco.  A selection of rare early California paintings and drawings in beautiful frames at prices near or at cost.  See also www.northpointgallery.com. 

 May 2 – August 16, 2009.  Brett Weston: Out of the Shadow, Santa Barbara Museum of Art.  Photographs by Brett, the son of better-known Edward Weston, whose career was overshadowed by that of his father.  The exhibit discusses the relationship (both familial and photographic) that existed between him and his father.  The largest retrospective of Brett’s work in over 30 years.  More than 130 photographs that range from early vintage prints made in Mexico and California in the 1920s and 1930s, East Coast images from the 1940s, to later landscapes and nature photographs as well as prints made shortly before his death in Hawaii in 1993.  (from the Museum website)

 May 3 – September 6, 2009.  Richard Neutra, Architect: Sketches and Drawings, Los Angeles Public Library, Getty Gallery.  Neutra (1892-1970), who is best known for his “International Style” architecture, sketched while he traveled.  The artworks in this show range from pencil sketches dating from Neutra’s student wandering in 1913 to later pastel renderings of his Los Angeles houses from the 1950s.  Selected for their artistic quality, the works illustrate Neutra’s skill in traditional notions of composition combined with his innovative techniques developed for his architectural representations.  One example is his crayon drawing of 29 Palms California, Christmas 1938, which is reproduced on the Library’s website.  The works were selected from Neutra materials at the Special Collections department of UCLA’s research library.  An audio tour of the exhibit is available free in the gallery via cell phone or it can be downloaded to an mp3 player.  (from the LAPL website)

 May 9 – August 23, 2009.  California Regionalism: Oils on Canvas, California Heritage Museum, Santa Monica.  Forty works by the leading members of the California Regionalist movement (active between 1920 and 1960) that show people at work and at leisure, the city changing and growing, and the beauty of the natural landscape.  Artists include Ralph Hulett, Emil Kosa, Jr., Barse Miller and Millard Sheets.

 May 16 – November 29, 2009.  Open Air: Impressions of the California Landscape, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno.  Ten artworks lent by an anonymous private collector.  All works are oil on canvas, date between 1900 and 1930, and depict the undeveloped land and sea of Southern California in the Impressionist style.  Some of the artists include Granville Redmond, William Wendt, Edgar Payne, and Dana Bartlett.

 May 23 – October 4, 2009.  Ansel Adams: A Life’s Work, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego. 

 May 27 – September 19, 2009.  The Outsiders: Modernism in California, 1920-1940, The Irvine Museum, Irvine, Ca.  Following California’s great era of Impressionist-style landscape painting, the state’s most avant garde artists turned to modernist ideas floating in from Europe and East Coast America for inspiration: Post-Impressionism; Cubism, Neo-Classicism, etc.  Among the artists in this show who “interpreted” rather than “transcribed” California’s environment onto canvas were Emil Kosa, Jr., Paul Lauritz, Frank Myers, Phil Paradise, Henrietta Shore and Hamilton A. Wolf. 

 May 31 – September 20, 2009.  You See: The Early Years of the UC Davis Studio Art Faculty, Pasadena Museum of California Art.  During the 1960s the “funk” style developed by certain UC Davis art faculty was unique and significant enough to challenge New York’s traditional lead in the arts.  Over thirty six works by such teacher/painters as Robert Arneson, Roy DeForest, Manuel Neri, Wayne Thiebaud and William T. Wiley grace this exhibit.  The funk style was humorous, irreverent, bawdy and self-deprecating.  Examples are Arneson’s enormous ceramic ode to his ‘50s-era Davis tract home and his bronze homage to Jackson Pollock entitled Crash.

 May 31 – September 20, 2009.  Edith Heath: Tabletop Modernist, Pasadena Museum of California Art.  Mid-century ceramist Edith Heath’s simple, minimalist pots and plates helped define mid-century modernism.  After a period of work in San Francisco, in 1947 Heath established Heath Ceramics in order to meet the growing demand for her dinnerware and accessories.  Besides beautiful shapes, she utilized unique glazes and clays and continually experimented with new techniques.

 June 26 – November 2, 2009.  Sweets & Treats: Wayne Thiebaud in the Collection of the Norton Simon Museum, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, Ca.  Prints created by the artist in the 1960s.  The black-and-white printmaking medium allows the viewer to focus on the meaning of Thiebaud’s food subjects as opposed to the tactile qualities such as texture and color that dominates his paintings of the same subject.

 August 5, 2009 – January 1, 2010.  The Facts Behind the Funnies: Schulz’s Passion for Precision, Charles Schulz Museum, Santa Rosa.  Concerned about always getting his facts straight when drawing his Peanuts cartoons, Schulz double checked sports plays and positions (from ice skating to surfing), medical conditions, musical notes, and even shorthand.  (from the museum website)

 August 9 – September 20, 2009.  California Relief: 100 Years of California Printmaking, Hearst Art Gallery, Saint Mary’s College, Moraga, Ca.

 September 2009.  11^th Annual Pottery and Tile Exhibition, Catalina Island Museum.  A tribute to the beautiful ceramics produced by the Catalina Clay Products company between 1927 and 1937.

 September 9, 2009 – January 10, 2010.  An Enduring Legacy: New Acquisitions to the Permanent Collection, Claremont Museum of Art.  This show highlights works acquired by the Museum during its first two years of existence.  All works express the Museum’s mission – to explore and preserve the local region’s artistic talent and legacy.  The Museum owns paintings, works on paper, sculpture, furniture and ceramics ranging in date from the 1930s to the present.  Artists represented include Millard Sheets, Jean Ames, Karl Benjamin, and James Hueter.  

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. 

 Donna L. Poulton, Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts, Layton, Ut.: Gibbs-Smith, 2009.  $80.  This book contains information on many California artists who were traveled to the dramatic landscape of southern Utah to find paintable subjects.

 Kathleen Manning, San Francisco Early Prints: 1848-1900, Windgate Press.  Twenty rare fine art lithographs from the California State Library and the Kathleen Manning Collection, printed on acid-free stock.  Accompanying the plates is a booklet illustrated with 20 additional rare prints and text explaining the printmaking methods employed during the Gold Rush and identifying the artists and publishers.  Limited Edition $200.

 Norm Hammond, The Dunites, Arroyo Grande, Ca.: South County Historical Society, 1992.   Illustrated with Dunite art.  (See related exhibit, above, and lectures, below.)

 A. Eugene Sanchez, Gene Kloss: An American Printmaker, Taos, N. M.: DeTeves Publishing, 2009.  A catalogue raisonne in two volumes (300 pp. each).  Illustrate 482 of Kloss’s 627 catalogued images plus 33 rare prints and 13 sketches.  The book also reproduces personal correspondence between Kloss and her long-time dealer Mary L. Sanchez of Taos’s Gallery A.  Thirteen years in the making.  Kloss graduated from UC Berkeley in 1924 and produced some prints of California before she settled in Taos, New Mexico.

 Gary Fillmore, All Aboard: The Life and Work of Marjorie Reed, Atglen, Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2009.  264 pp. with 600 illus.  Woman artist who depicted Western subject matter, particularly stage coaches.

 Bolton Colburn et al., In the Land of Retinal Delights: The Juxtapoz Factor, Laguna Beach: Laguna Art Museum, 2008.  (published in association with Gingko Press Inc., Corte Madera, Ca.)  192 pp., 238 illus.  Paintings, drawings and sculptures by pop-surrealist artists active from 1950 to the present and including Robert Crumb, Shepard Fairey, Llyn Foulkes, Margaret Kilgallen, Paul McCarthy, Barry McGee, Raymond Pettibon, Mark Ryden, Kenny Scharf and others.  Juxtapoz is the San Francisco magazine in which many of these artworks have been reproduced over the years.

 Photography:

Elizabeth M. Laval, The Fresno Fair: As Seen Through the Lens of Claude C. “Pop” Laval: Windows on the Past, Word Dancer Books, 2004.  Laval arrived in Fresno in 1911 and over the years photographed the annual Fresno Fair.

 Nathan Lyons, ed., Eye, Mind, Spirit: The Enduring Legacy of Minor White, NY: Howard Greenberg Gallery, 2008.  80 pp.  56 illus.  Notable mid-century San Francisco photographer.

 Architecture:

David Stark Wilson, Structures of Utility: Vernacular Architecture of the Great Central Valley, Heyday Books, 2003.  Silos, barns, etc.

 Terry Way, Victorian Homes of San Francisco, Atglen: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2009.  112 pp.  210 col. Illus.

 David Weingarten and Lucia Howard, Ranch Houses: Living the California Dream, NY: Rizzoli International, 2009.  240 pp.  229 illus.

 General books that include some California art:

Alexandra Munroe and Ikuyo Nakagawa, The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989, New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2009.  440 pp., 355 illus.  Several California artists worked in Japan including Theodore Wores, Helen Hyde and Bertha Lum. 

 Save Our Heritage Organisation Magazine is published by SOHO, San Diego.  It contains articles on San Diego architecture and art.  For contents of issues, see sohosandiego.org/reflections/index.htm.

 Gordon McClelland, “California Regionalism: Oils on Canvas,” American Art Review, v. XXI, No. 3, May/June 2009, pp. 128-133.  Discusses and reproduces some of the paintings in the show at the California Heritage Museum in Santa Monica.

 Morgan P. Yates, “Highlights and Halftones,” Westways, v. 101, no. 3, May 2009, pp. 35+.  Edward Weston photographs of California taken in 1937 and 1938 commissioned by Westways magazine for its monthly feature “Seeing California with Edward Weston”. 

 Morgan Yates, “Advertising Eden: Vintage ads from the early days of Westways,” Westways, June 2009, pp. 31+.  Discusses the artistic changes in advertising over the years as seen in Touring Topics/Westways.

 Jean Stern, “California Watercolors 1930-1950: The Hilbert Collection,” American Art Review, v. XXI, no. 2, March/April 2009, pp. 100-101.  About the show at the Irvine Museum.

 Sheryl Nomnenberg, “Stanley Wood: An Artist Lost and Found,” Fine Art Connoisseur, May/June 2009.  Wood (1894-1949) a watercolorist and lithographer, was active in Carmel and San Francisco in the 1920s and 1930s before he moved to Southern California where he died.

 Barnaby Conrad, “Open Studio” Santa Barbara Magazine, June/July 2009.  Discusses the early days of Santa Barbara’s artist colony and mentions Thomas Moran and others.

 “Movie Posters,” Architectural Digest, March 2009.

 Eric Merrell, “Birth of the California Art Club: Its Founding and First Annual Exhibition,” California Art Club Newsletter, Spring 2009, on line at www.californiaartclub.org.  

 Friday, April 24, 2009, 5:45 p.m.  Maynard Dixon: Art and Spirit by Jayne McKay will be screened at Edwards Island 1 at the Newport Beach Film Festival 2009.  Dixon’s landscapes of California and the American West stylize the earth’s strength and character.

 Friday April 24, 2009, 3:15 p.m.  Infinite Space: The Architecture of John Lautner will be aired at Edwards Island 5 at the 2009 Newport Beach Film Festival.  Lautner’s mid-century modernist architecture is discussed with the aid of historic photographs and original archival drawings, among other things.

 Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman will be aired twice – Sunday, April 26, 2009 at 2 p.m. at Edwards Island 6 and Tuesday, April 28, 2009, at 4 p.m. at the Lido Theater.  This is in conjunction with the Newport Beach Film Festival 2009.  The career of architectural photographer, Julius Shulman is revealed through interviews, photographs, and footage of Shulman himself.

 May 21, 2009.  A documentary film on furniture-maker/sculptor Sam Maloof, will be screened at the Riverside Art Museum.  The 93-year old Maloof will be on hand to answer audience questions.

 June 5, 2009, 7:30 p.m.  Visions: The Story of California Scene Painting 1925-1950, a 3-part film by Paul Bockhorst, will be aired at the Wilding Art Museum in Los Olivos.  Bockhorst himself will be on hand for Q & A. 

 March 8, 2009.  California Women Artists 1850s-1930s, a lecture by Professor Clarice Stasz, was held at the Petaluma Historical Museum.  She discussed women who were prominent from the mid 1800s into the early 1900s, many of whom were active in Sonoma and Marin Counties.

 March 14, 2009, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.  Asian American Artists in California, Hammer Museum, Westwood.  Artists and scholars discussed artists of Asian descent and celebrated the publication of Asian American Art: A History 1850-1970 as well as the 40^th anniversary of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.

 March 21, 2009, 2 p.m. The Dunites by Norm Hammond, Odd Fellows Hall (of the South County Historical Society), Arroyo Grande.  (See related book and exhibit, above.)  Bohemian artists who lived in Oceano dunes.

 May 2, 2009, 2 p.m.  Land of Sunshine: Paintings from the Irvine Museum Collection, a lecture by Robert Dycus, Santa Barbara landscape painter, will be held at the Wilding Art Museum, Los Olivos.  The lecture will focus on the 24 landscapes in the temporary exhibition at the museum and will be open to the public free of charge.  Following Dycus’ talk there will be a screening of the film “Beautiful Simplicity: Arts and Crafts Architecture in Southern California,” a film by Paul Bockhorst that explores architecture created in the same 1900-1930 time frame as the paintings.  The film will also be shown daily at the Museum at 2 p.m. through the end of the exhibition on Memorial Day.

 May 3, 2009, 3 – 5 p.m.  The Early L. A. Art Community and William Wendt, Founder of the California Art Club, a lecture by Jean Stern, Executive Director of The Irvine Museum, will be held at the Pasadena Museum of California Art.

 Sunday, May 17, 2009, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.  Tea, Biscotti, and Landscapes, Josh Hardy Galleries, San Francisco.  Enjoy Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea and a discussion of California art.

 Thursday, June 25, 2009, 3 – 5 p.m.  Art of San Francisco’s Swedenborgian Church, sponsored by Josh Hardy Galleries, San Francisco.  RSVP to 415-345-1832.  Not far from Hardy Galleries’ new branch in Presidio Heights, San Francisco is the Swedenborgian Church (located at Washington and Lyon Streets).  Designed by A. Page Brown with input from artist William Keith and Rev. Joseph Worcester, it was built between 1894 and 1900 and is California’s earliest pure Arts & Crafts building, now designated as a National Historic Landmark.  Keith contributed four paintings to the church representing the seasons of California (including Seed Time, After Rain, Harvest and Forest Interior).  Mary Curtis Richardson contributed the pulpit and the painted pedestal while Bruce Porter created the stained glass windows.  (From Josh Hardy Galleries Quarterly).  See also www.sfswedenborgian.org.

 June 27, 2009, 12:30 to 5:30 p.m.  Perspectives on Mid-Century California Design, a seminar, will be held at the Mingei International Museum, Balboa Park, San Diego, Ca.  Presenters include Jo Lauria and Dale Carolyn Gluckman (co-curators of the exhibit Masters of Mid-Century California Modernism), Gerard O’Brien (owner of Reform Gallery in Los Angeles), Dave Hampton (San Diegan and co-founder of the website Objects USA) and Catherine Bailey and Robin Petravic (owners of Heath Ceramics).  $25/members and students; $35 non-members.

 June 28, 2000, 3 p.m.  Hollywood and Uncle Sam: Richard Neutra in the Great Depression, a lecture by Thomas S. Hines, curator of the exhibit of Neutra’s drawings at the Los Angeles Public Library, will be held at the Los Angeles Public Library.  For more information see www.aloudla.org.

 August 15, 2009, 2 p.m.  Dunite Art and San Luis Obispo art pioneer Harold Forgostein (1906-1990), a lecture by Marty Fast (Hancock College instructor & art gallery director) at the Odd Fellows Hall (of the South County Historical Society), Arroyo Grande, Ca.  Forgostein served as 4^th Guardian of the Temple (of the Theosophical Society) in Halcyon, Ca.  His series of twenty-two paintings depicting the life of Hiawatha were painted to show the necessity of balance between humans and their environment, so well understood by the American Indians.  Selected paintings by Forgostein are on view at the Halcyon University Centre, which is open by appointment.  Some images can be viewed at www.wg32.net/~totp/history/legend/haroldswork.htm.

 August 23, 2009, 5-7 p.m.  All Aboard: The Life & Works of Marjorie Reed, a lecture by book author Gary Fillmore, will be presented at the Seeley Stables Museum, 2648 Calhoun Street in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, followed by a book signing and a wine and cheese reception.

 August 30, 2009, 2-3 p.m.  Edith Heath Panel Discussion, Pasadena Museum of California Art.  Mid-century modern ceramics. 

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.

 June 23, 2009.  California & American Paintings Auction, John Moran Antique & Fine Art Auctioneers, Pasadena, Ca.  On line catalogue at www.johnmoran.com. 

August 3, 2009.  California and American Paintings and Sculpture, Bonhams & Butterfields, Los Angeles and San Francisco.  Butterfield solicits consignments and reports its April 7^th auction demonstrated strong prices and set three records – for works by Granville Redmond, Arthur G. Rider and Bernard von Eichman.

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