California Artists: 19th-21st Century
(above: Jean Mannheim (1861-1945), A Lonely Tea Party, c.1916, oil on canvasboard, Collection of Stephen P. Diamond, M.D. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons**)
Introduction
This section of the Traditional Fine Arts Organization (TFAO) catalogue Topics in American Art is devoted to the topic "California Artists: 19th-21st Century." Articles and essays specific to this topic published in TFAO's Resource Library are listed at the beginning of the section. Clicking on titles takes readers directly to these articles and essays. The date at the end of each title is the Resource Library publication date.
Following are links to valuable online resources found outside our website. Links may be to museums' articles about exhibits, plus much more topical information based on our online searches.
Following online resources is information about offline resources including museums, DVDs, and paper-printed books, journals and articles.
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Also see TFAO's topics: California Art History, California Impressionism and California Regionalism and California School of Painters
(above: Patrick Shearn: Skynet, Laguna Beach, CA Photo: Barbara Hazeltine 2020
Resource Library articles honoring the American experience through its art
From other websites:
Aesthetic Forces: Nature in the Modern California Landscape, 1915-2015 is a 2021 exhibit at the Saint Mary's College Museum of Art which says: "In the 18th and 19th centuries, artists adapted the philosophical concepts of the sublime and picturesque to evoke moods and stir sensations in art viewers through a landscape painting's aesthetic experience. The sublime referred to a looming sensation -- a lurking threat and thrill -- alluded to as natural cataclysmic phenomena through darkened space or vast empty terrain. Whereas the picturesque, literally meaning "picture-like", referred to a pleasing sensation -- ideal tranquility in nature -- often depicted as a manicured garden or a compositionally balanced vista. With the advent of the 20th century, these concepts fell out of practice as Modernism flourished. Despite this, aesthetic approaches to landscape painting remained and like language, the roots of the sublime and picturesque lingered and continued to adapt in the genre of landscape." Accessed 2/22
A Fanciful World: Jessie Arms Botke is a 2021 exhibit at the Laguna Art Museum which says: "Bold, decorative studies of exotic birds and flowers are the subject of Jessie Arms Botke's most notable paintings. After settling in California, Botke reached her stylistic peak in the 1930s with eye-dazzling artworks adorned with gold and silver leaf, inspired by Japanese design and European landscape aesthetics. Despite her prolific output and successful career, few exhibitions have focused solely on Botke's work. This exhibition examines work from different periods of Botke's career and travels including a magnificent 29-foot-long mural that once adorned the Oaks Hotel in Ojai, California." Also see LA Weekly 12/22/21 coverage. Accessed 1/22
A Kind of Heaven is a 2022 exhibit at the Oceanside Museum of Art which says: "Today's visionary art began in California as outsider art in the 1930's, inspired by immigrants who brought with them the ideas of the anti-authoritarian back-to-nature German Wandervögel movement and the aesthetics of Jugendstil. It was profoundly influential on Disney animation artists, influencing films like the classic Fantasia. By the 1960s, visionary art had become the dominant expression of the hippy counter-culture, shaping the appearance of classic rock posters and album covers, and since then it has developed into a burgeoning field within the art world." Accessed 7/22
Art & Heritage, Three San Diego Jewish Artists: Baranceanu, Braun & Sternberg is a 2017 exhibit at the San Diego Historical Society Museum which says: "Art & Heritage, Three San Diego Jewish Artists: Baranceanu, Braun & Sternberg explores the artwork, lives, and Jewish heritage of three historically-important San Diego artists: Belle Baranceanu, Maurice Braun, and Harry Sternberg." Accessed 8/18
Bruce Everett: A Change of Scenery is a 2019 exhibit at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art which says: "Ever since Everett and his wife decided to move to Templeton from Southern California in 2007, he has produced both plein air studies and studio paintings of the California Central Coast landscape that are in numerous public, private, corporate and museum collections." Accessed 5/19
Cartoon Formalism: Works on Paper in the Permanent Collection is a 2020 exhibit at the Albuquerque Museum which says: "The artists featured in this exhibition pushed back against the ideals of formalism and redefined how the body and the natural world could be dynamic and expressive elements of their work that was primarily produced between the 1960s and 1980s. The Funk aesthetic found its roots in Northern California amongst Bay Area figurative painters like Joan Brown and Richard Diebenkorn, and in Los Angeles with John Altoon and Andy Warhol. Moving away from the kind of abstraction that triumphed in New York at the time, these artists created work that is ironic and playful in appearance, while presenting serious psychological and personal subjects." Accessed 10/20
David Hockney: Yosemite is a 2017 exhibit at the Butler Institute of American Art which says: "During visits to California's Yosemite Valley in 2010 and 2011, David Hockney sought to capture its resplendent landscape. Working in situ, the artist rendered the scenery using a drawing application on his iPad." Also see 5/2/16 article in The New York Times Style Magazine, 3/28/17 article from KQED Arts. Accessed 9/17
David Park: A Retrospective is a 2019 exhibit at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth which says: "David Park: A Retrospective is the first major museum exhibition in more than 30 years to present the powerfully expressive work of David Park (1911-1960), best known as the founder of Bay Area Figurative art" Accessed 11/19
David Park: A Retrospective is a 2020 exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art which says: "The heart of the show is a rich selection of the 1950s Bay Area Figurative canvases for which he is best known -- boldly executed compositions featuring musicians, domestic and vernacular scenes, portraits, boaters, and bathers." Accessed 1/21
E. Charlton Fortune: The Colorful Spirit is a 2018 exhibit at the Monterey Museum of Art which says: "Fortune had a thriving career as a painter until the age of forty-three when she began a pioneering new vocation as a liturgical artist and as the leader of the Monterey Guild. The exhibition pairs the artist's impressionist and modernist landscapes with her ecclesiastical paintings, furnishings, and other work produced for the Catholic Church." -- To read more after exhibit closes, go to "Past Exhibitions" section of museum website. Also see the biography of E. Charlton Fortune .htm from Jennie V. Cannon: The Untold History of the Carmel and Berkeley Art Colonies, vol. one, East Bay Heritage Project, Oakland, 2012 by Robert W. Edwards from Resource Library. Accessed 6/18
Elmer Bischoff: A Survey of Paintings and Drawings, 1937 - 1972 is a 2020 exhibit at the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art https://marinmoca.org which says: "Bischoff was a Bay Area painter deeply engaged in the practice of putting paint on canvas in a way that kept him constantly searching for something just out of his reach. His paintings are sensual and lyrical, with marks and compositions influenced by his love of music, including New Orleans Jazz and classical music." Accessed 11/20
George Samerjan: Paris and Los Angeles Exhibition is a 2021 exhibit at The Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University. Mary Platt, Director, says: "George Samerjan (1915-2005) was a noted California artist whose career started in Los Angeles and continued through his work on WPA post office murals, his WWII service -- during which he created vivid paintings of the military life around him -- and his postwar art career as an acclaimed painter in both oils and watercolors. This exhibition focuses on a series of wartime paintings he created in 1944 showing scenes of the Allied liberation of Paris, as well as some of his Depression-era and postwar work in and around Los Angeles." Accessed 8/23
The Gift of Los Angeles: Memories in Watercolor by Gayle Garner Roski is a 2021 exhibit at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art which says: "Since her debut, Gayle's watercolors have been exhibited countless more times, she painted en plein air on almost every corner of the earth, and even illustrated several books. All the while the theme of gifts stuck with her. Beginning in the year 2000, Gayle started painting the works on display in this exhibition to give back to a city that had always seemed to her to be the greatest gift imaginable." Accessed 9/21
Grafton Tyler Brown: Exploring California is a 2018 exhibit at the Pasadena Museum of California Art which says: "Grafton Tyler Brown (1841-1918) was a painter, graphic designer, and lithographer in the 19th cenury. A talented artist and entrepreneur, Brown was the only documented African American in his field in the western United States at the time." Accessed 7/18
Granville Redmond: The Eloquent Palette is a 2020 exhibit at the Laguna Art Museum which says: "Representing both northern and southern parts of the state, his paintings range in style from contemplative, "Tonalist" works that evoke a quiet calm, to dramatic and colorful Impressionist scenes. Today Redmond is widely considered one of the leading California artists of his era." Accessed 1/21
Granville Redmond: The Eloquent Palette is an exhibition hosted by the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California from January 26, 2020 through May 17, 2020. The Museum described the exhibition as follows: "Granville Redmond (1871-1935) produced a body of work that captures California's diverse topography, vegetation, and color. Representing both northern and southern parts of the state, his paintings range in style from contemplative, Tonalist works that evoke a quiet calm, to dramatic and colorful Impressionist scenes. Born in Philadelphia, he contracted scarlet fever as a toddler, which left him permanently deaf. Soon after, his family moved to California. Redmond is today best known for his colorful Impressionist oils depicting the California landscape ablaze with poppies and other native flora. Silent film star Charlie Chaplin, Redmond's friend and supporter, said of these paintings, "There's such a wonderful joyousness about them all. Look at the gladness in that sky, the riot of color in those flowers. Sometimes I think that the silence in which he lives has developed in him some sense, some great capacity for happiness in which we others are lacking." Today, Redmond is widely considered one of California's top early artists. This exhibition, the largest ever assembled and the first in more than 30 years, includes approximately 85 signature paintings." Accessed 9/23
(above: Granville Richard Seymor Redmond, Flowers Under the Oaks, oil on canvas, Irvine Museum, on loan from a private collection. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)
James Strombotne Paints All He Can Imagine is a 2019 exhibit at the Claremont Museum of Art which says: " Strombotne's subject matter derives from observation of, and response to, the physical world -- figures, objects, landscapes that are both recognizable and abstracted in ways unique to him." Accessed 5/20
Joan Gladstone: A Collection of Paintings of Laguna Beach is a 2021 exhibit at The Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University. Mary Platt, Director, says: "Throughout her career, Gladstone continued to take art classes and paint in her studio in her home in Laguna Beach. With an eye to finding subjects to paint, she photographed scenes from bicycling trips abroad with her husband Ed Gillow. She closed her business in 2019 to devote herself to painting full time. Gladstone's bold yet serene oil paintings reflect her love of Laguna Beach and the ocean. Her seascapes and figurative paintings have been featured in more than a dozen juried fine art shows." Accessed 8/23
(above: Christian August Jorgensen, Asistencia de San Antonio de Pala, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons**)
Manuel Neri: The Human Figure in Plaster and on Paper is a 2018 exhibit at the Yale University Art Gallery which says: "A contemporary of other notable California-based artists such as Elmer Bischoff, Joan Brown, Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, and Wayne Thiebaud, Manuel Neri (b. 1930) is best known for his life-sized plaster, bronze, and marble sculptures that combine classical figuration with the dynamic mark making of Abstract Expressionism." Also see press release and image sheet for the exhibit. Accessed 5/18
Mary Armstrong: Conditions of Faith is an exhibition hosted by the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College in Boston, Massachusetts from September 9, 2019 through December 8, 2019. The Museum describes the exhibition as follows: "Conditions of Faith presents seascapes and landscapes painted by Mary Armstrong over the last seven years. Nature and memory inspire her layered, complex compositions. Oil and wax depict forces of nature, both imagined and real, in the seascapes. For Armstrong, roiling currents, sunlit estuaries, and particularly rising waves are "a perfect visual metaphor for change, both desired and feared, destructive and regenerative, personal and political.
Her desert landscapes illustrate the mountain ranges of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in California, where the artist has visited since the early 1990s. In these oil pastels Armstrong replaces tumultuous Maine waters with swirling clouds over the Borrego Valley, capturing the shifting relationship between earth and sky. Armstrong taught painting in Boston College's Department of Art, Art History, and Film from 1989 to 2019."Accessed 9/23
Mineo Mizuno is a 2022 exhibit at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens which says: "Mizuno's practice connects the ceramic traditions and aesthetic philosophies of his native Japan with the artistic and cultural legacies of California, his home for more than 50 years. In Nest, his piece that is installed on the loggia, manzanita branches from fallen trees, sourced in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, are combined with steel, aluminum, hemp, and ceramic forms to make delicate "nests." Viewed in relationship to the adjacent gardens and the majestic San Gabriel Mountains in the distance, the work suggests an interconnectedness between humans and nature."
Miss Hills of Laguna Beach is a 2016 exhibit at the Laguna Art Museum which says: "The landscape painter Anna Althea Hills (1882-1930) was one of the highly talented artists whose presence in the community helped put Laguna Beach on the map as a premier art colony during the first decades of the twentieth century." Accessed 8/18
Nathan Oliveira: A Figure Apart is a 2018 exhibit at the Napa Valley Museum which says: "Nathan Oliveira was an American artist and prominent member of the second generation of the Bay Area Figurative artists. Though he worked with a variety of media, subjects, and disciplines over the course of his long career, Oliveira is best remembered for the brilliantly colored figurative and landscape paintings he created while associated with the California movement." Accessed 7/18
On the Road: Paintings by Suong Yangchareon is a 2019 exhibit at the California Heritage Museum which says: "After fulfilling his dream of settling in Southern California, Suong set out on joy rides and road trips to see in person, places that reminded him of feelings he got when viewing interesting California scenes that appeared in the films of his childhood." Also see website of artist. Accessed 8/20
Raymond Dabb Yelland. California Landscape Painter is a 2018 exhibit at the Crocker Art Museum which says: "The 25 landscapes in this exhibition illustrate his transition from the Hudson River School style of painting, which focused on topographically recognizable scenes painted with meticulous, albeit enhanced, realism, to a more loosely painted, evocative aesthetic popularized by the French Barbizon painters." Accessed 11/18
Remembering Bud Bottoms: A Legacy of Art and Activism is a 2020 exhibit at the Wildling Museum which says: "The exhibit features sea life sculpture works by the Santa Barbara artist locally-renowned for his iconic Dolphin Family sculpture installed at the base of Stearns Wharf in downtown Santa Barbara." Accessed 1/21
Robert Williams, The Father of Exponential Imagination is a 2019 exhibit at the Bellveue Art Museum which says: "He is a painter of exquisitely detailed allegories and epic history paintings, as well as being an instigator of one of the most profane counter-culture comic books ever published. A natural iconoclast, Williams has engaged in a passionate dialogue on the meaning and utility of art-making, placing his work in opposition to what he sees as the sterile misanthropy of abstract and conceptual art." Also see the website of the artist. Accessed 7/20
Ray Strong: A Collector's Passion is a 2019 exhibit at the Wildling Museum of Art and Nature which says: "The show features 32 paintings by renowned Santa Barbara artist Ray Strong (1905-2006), loaned by David Parker of Goleta. While several pieces have been shown at venues throughout the county, this is the first time the entire collection will be shown together." Accessed 5/19
Ray Strong: Beyond Santa Barbara is a 2015 exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art which says: "This intimate presentation of six paintings and drawings features landscapes and cityscapes produced outside of the Santa Barbara area created during a 45-year period, offering a view of Strong's travels and his lifelong interest in depicting the environment around him." Accessed 8/18
Otis College presents the series: Otis Legacy Project: Interviews of Distinguished Otis Alumni. Milford Zornes attended Otis in 1927. He became a famous California water colorist. Milford was interviewed by Otis students in November 2007. He passed away in January, 2008. [4:45] Text from Otis College. Accessed August, 2015
Thomas Hunt: California Modernist is a 2019 exhibit at the Laguna Art Museum which says: "Hunt painted snowy landscapes in Canada and Cleveland, although he is best known for the coastal and harbor scenes that he painted in Southern California and during regular visits to Gloucester, Massachusetts. A masterful, innovative colorist, he developed a distinctive style characterized by broad brushwork and bold effects of light and reflection." Also see article from Bowers Museum blog. Accessed 6/20
Warren Chang: Voice of the Fields is a 2019 exhibit at the New Museum Los Gatos which says: "The exhibition showcases Chang's large scale luminous paintings of the community who labor in the farms around the Salinas Valley." Also see artist website Accessed 4/20
Who was Nellie Gail Moulton? is a 2020 virtual and in-person exhibit held at Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens and archived by the Moulton Museum which says: "As the matriarch of Moulton Ranch, she oversaw this nearly 22,000 acres operation. It was comprised of sheep, cattle, and agricultural enterprises. Nellie was an en plein air artist and philanthropist. She studied art with Southern Californian masters such as William Wendt, Anna Hills, Frank Cuprien, and Edgar Payne. Her paintings are paired with sketches and historical images in the gallery." Also see "A Tale of Two Nellies" blog article by Casa Romantica and a video featuring Jane Barnes, Moulton's granddaughter. Accessed 4/21
(above: Mark Kerckhoff, Mt. San Jacinto and Yuccas,1986, oil on canvas, 48 1/2 x 48 1/2 inches. Private Collection)
(above: Ken Auster, Balboa Island Bridge, c. 2008, oil on canvas,18 x 24 inches. Private collection)
May, 2023 screenshot via Google video search:
Also see:
California Impressionism and California Regionalism and California School of Painters
(above: Albertus Del Orient Browere, The Lone Prospector, 1853, oil on canvas, Oakland Museum of California, lent to Oakland Museum of California by Hideko Goto Packard Family Trust. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)
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