California Plein-Air Painting
Encyclopedia
The term California Plein-Air Painting describes the large movement of 20th century California artists who worked out of doors, directly from nature in California
, United States
. Their work became popular in the San Francisco Bay Area
and Southern California
in the first three decades after the turn of the 20th century. Considered the be a regional variation on American Impressionism
, the painters of the California Plein-Air School are also described as California Impressionists, the terms are used interchangeably.
s, seashore
s, and desert
s of the interior and coastal regions. California Impressionism reached its peak of popularity in the years before the Great Depression
. The California Plein-Air painters generally painted in a bright, chromatic palette with "loose" painterly brush work that showed some influence from French Impressionism. These artists gathered in art colonies in places like Carmel-by-the-Sea and Laguna Beach as well as in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles
and Pasadena
.
Organizations like the California Art Club
, the Painters and Sculptors Club, San Francisco's Sketch Club, The Carmel Art Association, The Laguna Beach Art Association and the Los Angeles Museum of History, Art and Architecture played a key role in popularizing the work of the Plein-Air Painters of California. While Impressionist-influenced paintings remained popular in California well after it did in Europe or the Eastern United States, as the Depression worsened and newer, more modern styles became accepted, the movement fell into decline. This slumber that would last more than four decades.
(1867–1925) were actually born and raised in California. Some of the most prominent names associated with the Plein-Air school are the fore mentioned Rose, William Wendt
(1865–1946) , Granville Redmond
(1871–1935), Edgar Payne, Armin Hansen
(1886–1957), Jean Mannheim (1861-1945), John Marshall Gamble (1863–1957), Franz Bischoff
(1864–1929), William Ritschel (1864–1949), Alson S. Clark
(1876–1949), Hanson Puthuff
(1875–1972), Marion Wachtel
(1875–1954) and Jack Wilkinson Smith (1873–1949). Most of these artists were already trained in art when they moved to California, arriving between 1900 and the early 1920s.
took hold.
Many of the Northern California painters were influenced by the works of the French painters of the Barbizon School
who worked in the forest south of Paris in the mid-19th century as well as the American landscape master George Inness
(1825–1894) and the American expatriate James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903). Northern California Tonalist landscapes can be recognized by its simplified compositions and an limited palette that gave the paintings close color harmonies. Some of the other major Northern California Tonalists were Arthur and Lucia Matthews, who headed of the Bay Area Arts and Crafts Movement, the morose and melancholy moonlight painter Charles Rollo Peters (1862–1928), the flamboyant Xavier Martinez (1869–1943) and the painter and muralist Giuseppe Cadenasso (1858–1918). While many of the Northern California painters did paint extensively out of doors, most of the works were done in their studio, stylized and poetic visions, a step away from the type of Plein-Air "visual snapshot" or "impression" favored by the French school.
After 1915 and the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, which brought many French and American Impressionist masterworks to San Francisco, more Northern California painters adopted a more chromatic palette and dappled brushwork that was closer to French Impressionism and they adopted high-key midday subjects. Some of the best known Northern California painters who worked in a more impressionistic manner were the marine painter Armin Hansen, the coastal landscape painter Bruce Nelson and E. Charlton Fortune (1885–1969), a talented Monterey woman who gave up easel painting for ecclesiastical decoration. Two of the most prominent California Impressionists who lived in Carmel and were known for their marine subjects were William Ritschel and Paul Dougherty
, both of whom developed national reputations long before they moved west.
developed more slowly than the San Francisco, where the California Gold Rush
caused the rapid expansion of its wealth and art scene, so there were few artists and even fewer collectors in the years before the turn of the 20th century. As first the Painters Club (1906) and then the California Art Club
(1909) were founded and the first commercial galleries opened, Southern California
began to draw artists and patrons and a bright, airy Impressionist aesthetic became dominant. This coincided with a tremendous population boom in Southern California. From early in the 20th century, Southern California painters generally worked in a much higher key then their Northern California contemporaries. This seems almost natural, for the Southland was a land of almost perpetual sunshine. The painters didn't need the earth tones that were favored by the Northern California painters and instead adopted a broad, chromatic palette that helped them to capture the brilliant light that bathed the hills and valleys of Southern California. William Wendt
, one of the founders and the long serving president of the California Art Club was a bold stylist known for his paintings of California in the springtime. The Austrian Franz Bischoff and the Alsatian-born Jean Mannheim were both converts to California Impressionism. Guy Rose, whose father was a leading rancher was a Los Angeles native who was trained in San Francisco and Paris and while in France he became an enthusiastic proponent of Impressionism. He only came home in 1914, after years of living in the Giverny
art colony.
in Southern California
and Harvey Jones of the Oakland Museum of California
in Northern California
, dealers, collectors art writers began to recognize that a major movement of Impressionist-influenced painters had been active in California between 1910 and 1940. Interest in California's Plein-Air painters was aided by the historic preservation movement and interest in the Arts and Crafts Movement
in California.
As interest in the American Arts and Crafts Movement
increased and historic preservation
became popular, young curators, art historians and art dealers began to mount exhibits and write books and articles on California Plein-Air Painting. By the 1980s, there was a broad interest in California Impressionism. Now, there are dozens of commercial galleries specializing in this group of artists, a broad base of collectors, a number of museums with extensive collections and hundreds of scholarly and "coffee table" books on the movement. By the late 1970s, galleries and antique "pickers" were beginning to recognize that the Plein-Air School was good business as there were thousands of paintings in the homes of aging residents and available in flea markets and second-hand stores. The second generation dealer Jean Stern, who was then at the helm of the Peterson Gallery in Beverly Hills hosted retrospective exhibitions for Franz Bischoff and other artists of the Plein-Air school with small color catalogs, signaling that the early painters of Los Angeles were worthy of both scholarly and commercial attention. Jean Stern's younger brother George Stern, an attorney, opened the George Stern Gallery in Encino and Ray Redfern, another second generation dealer, took over the family firm from his mother and began to specialize in the works of the Laguna Beach painters. Marian Bowater opened the Bowater Gallery on La Cienega Boulevard's "Gallery Row"and began to specialize in Plein-Air Painters. In 1977 the Laguna Art Museum
hosted a retrospective for William Wendt, the most important figure in early Los Angeles painting,which was curated by Nancy Moure. The following year Moure released her landmark Dictionary of Art and Artists in Southern California Before 1930, which, for the first time allowed collectors to know whose work it was they were looking at. Moure also curated a retrospective exhibition for the Laguna Beach Museum with illustrations of works by dozens of painters who had been active there.
In 1981 in conjunction with the Los Angeles Bicentennial, an exhibition of early California painting was held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and commercial venues like Peterson Galleries and Morseburg Galleries also hosted exhibitions that were part of the city's official activities. In 1982 the well-crafted book Plein-Air Painters of California: The Southland was published by Ruth Lilly Westphal. Written by Westphal, with introductory essays by Terry DeLapp, Thomas Kenneth Enman, Nancy Moure, Martin Peterson and Jean Stern, the book, which had short essays on dozens of painters, had the effect of separating the values of the painters whose works were included in book from those who were not, perhaps a mixed blessing, but it also gave new collectors a group of names to shoot for. Westphal followed the first book with Plein-Air Painters of California: The North, in 1986. Magazines like the California history magazine the Californians, Antiques and Fine Art, Art and Antiques and Tom Kellaway's reorganized American Art Review also played an important role in publishing articles on the California Plein-Air painters and carrying advertisements from the galleries that spread awareness of the movement.
(b. 1950), Arny Karl
(1940–2000) and Tim Solliday
(b. 1952) the artists were students of one of the original Plein-Air painters, the portrait artist and plein-air pastelist Theodore Lukits
(1897–1992) and these three artists had been sketching together since the 1970s. In the case of Dan Pinkham, Joseph Mendez and Sunny Apinchapong Yang, they had studied under the Russian Impressionist Sergei Bongart
(1918–1985) while the Ojai painter Richard Rackus (b. 1922) had studied in the late 1930s and early 1940s when many of the original California Impressionists were still teaching. This loose group of plein-air painters were exhibiting their work at a number of commercial galleries including Poulsen Galleries in Pasadena and Morseburg Galleries in Los Angeles. At the same time, a number of other out-door painters formed a new organization, the Plein-Air of America ("PAPA"). Their first exhibition, the 1st Annual Plein-Air Painters Festival, was organized in 1986 by the artist Denise Burns and Roy Rose, the grand-nephew of the Impressionist Roy Rose. This annual painting festival and sale was held on Santa Catalina Island until 2003 as the organization expanded well beyond the boundaries of California. In Santa Barbara, a group of younger painters was also coming together, grouped around the elderly regionalist Ray Strong
(1905–2006). This group of artists was formalized as the Oak Group in 1985 and it spread interest in plein-air painting promoted environmental awareness on the Central California Coast. Perhaps the major turning point in the California Plein-Air Revival was the reorganization and revitalization of the historic California Art Club in 1993 under the leadership of Peter and Elaine Adams. Adams recruited most of the recognized contemporary California landscape painters for the revived CAC and it soon began to sponsor exhibitions that helped to expand what had been a number of loosely affiliated artists into a broad and well-organized movement.
. Because of the tremendous influx of academically trained Chinese painters in California, Adams and the CAC added painters like Mian Situ, Michael Situ, and Jove Wang to its roster. Some of the artists who had been vital members of the California Art Club prior to the Adams administration, such as Don and Wanda Duborow and Rolf and Evelyn Zilmner, who was Chairman of the Gold Medal Exhibition, played important roles in the revitalization. The re-organized California Art Club soon began organizing museum shows devoted to both its historic and contemporary members and soon the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, the Frederick R. Weissman Museum at Pepperdine and other institutions were hosting exhibitions. A newsletter with articles by recognized scholars and exhibition catalogs contributed to making the works of the CAC's plein-Air painters and other artists more widely known. The organization also held frequent "paint outs" where artists met and worked on location as a group. As the reorganized California Art Club matured, the emphasis on plein-air painting, the focus of many of the artists began to shift somewhat as more experienced figurative artists joined the organization. .
. Plein-Air painters of America, which began as a California organization, is now national in scope, but it still has a strong California membership, which includes Lynn Gertenbach, John Budicin, Gil Dellinger, Michael Siu, Calvin Liang, Louise DeMore and Joseph Mendez.
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Their work became popular in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
and Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
in the first three decades after the turn of the 20th century. Considered the be a regional variation on American Impressionism
American Impressionism
Impressionism, a style of painting characterized by loose brushwork and vivid colors, was practiced widely among American artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.-An emerging artistic style from Paris:...
, the painters of the California Plein-Air School are also described as California Impressionists, the terms are used interchangeably.
History
The California Plein-Air artists depicted the California landscape - the foothills, mountainMountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
s, seashore
Seashore
-Landform:* Coast* Intertidal zone, between high and low water lines* National seashore, a special designation in the United States* Shore-Other:* Seashore , an open source image editor, based on GIMP written in Cocoa for Mac OS X...
s, and desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
s of the interior and coastal regions. California Impressionism reached its peak of popularity in the years before the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. The California Plein-Air painters generally painted in a bright, chromatic palette with "loose" painterly brush work that showed some influence from French Impressionism. These artists gathered in art colonies in places like Carmel-by-the-Sea and Laguna Beach as well as in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and Pasadena
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
.
Organizations like the California Art Club
California Art Club
The California Art Club , founded in 1909, is one of the oldest and most active arts organizations in California. It celebrated its centennial in the spring of 2010. The California Art Club originally evolved from the Painters Club of Los Angeles...
, the Painters and Sculptors Club, San Francisco's Sketch Club, The Carmel Art Association, The Laguna Beach Art Association and the Los Angeles Museum of History, Art and Architecture played a key role in popularizing the work of the Plein-Air Painters of California. While Impressionist-influenced paintings remained popular in California well after it did in Europe or the Eastern United States, as the Depression worsened and newer, more modern styles became accepted, the movement fell into decline. This slumber that would last more than four decades.
Artists
Most of the these Plein-Air painters came from the East, the Midwest and Europe and only a few of the early artists such as Guy RoseGuy Rose
Guy Rose was an American Impressionist painter who is recognized as one of California's top impressionist painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries....
(1867–1925) were actually born and raised in California. Some of the most prominent names associated with the Plein-Air school are the fore mentioned Rose, William Wendt
William Wendt
William Wendt was an American landscape painter. He was called the "Dean of Southern California landscape painters."Wendt was a founding member of the California Art Club, along with his wife Julia Bracken Wendt, and served as its president for six years.Wendt built his studio in Laguna Beach,...
(1865–1946) , Granville Redmond
Granville Redmond
Granville Redmond was an American landscape painter and exponent of Tonalism and California Impressionism.- Early years :...
(1871–1935), Edgar Payne, Armin Hansen
Armin Hansen
Armin Hansen , native of San Francisco, is prominent American Painter of the En plein air school, best known for his marine canvases. His father Hermann Hansen was also a famous artist of the American West...
(1886–1957), Jean Mannheim (1861-1945), John Marshall Gamble (1863–1957), Franz Bischoff
Franz Bischoff
Franz A. Bischoff was an American artist known primarily for his beautiful China painting, floral paintings and California landscapes. He was born in Steinschönau, Austria Franz A. Bischoff (January 14, 1864-February 5, 1929) was an American artist known primarily for his beautiful China painting,...
(1864–1929), William Ritschel (1864–1949), Alson S. Clark
Alson S. Clark
Alson S. Clark was an American Impressionist painter best remembered for his impressionist landscapes. Born in Chicago, Illinois, his art education included training at the Art Institute of Chicago , the Art Students League of New York, and in the atelier of William Merritt Chase...
(1876–1949), Hanson Puthuff
Hanson Puthuff
Hanson Duvall Puthuff was a landscape painter and muralist, born in Waverly, Missouri. Puthuff studied at the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to Colorado in 1889 to study at University of Denver Art School...
(1875–1972), Marion Wachtel
Marion Wachtel
Marion Kavanaugh Wachtel was a plein air painter in watercolors and oils that lived and worked with her artist husband Elmer Wachtel in the Arroyo Seco near Pasadena, California, in the early 20th century...
(1875–1954) and Jack Wilkinson Smith (1873–1949). Most of these artists were already trained in art when they moved to California, arriving between 1900 and the early 1920s.
Northern California Tonalism & Impressionism
In the 1890s, painting in Northern California began to progress from the grand vistas of specific locations that had been popular in the 1870s and 1880s, to more intimate views. This second generation of Northern California landscape artists were less concerned about the details of specific locations than they were about recording the color, atmosphere and feelings they experienced when they sketched. William Keith, known as "The Dean of Northern California" painters, completed this transition in his own work. He began his career as a painter of picturesque landscapes, many of them of massive size. Then, after traveling abroad, he began to concentrate on "mood", eliminating what he saw as unnecessary detail from his landscapes. In the cool, misty climes of the north, this aesthetic view that is described as California TonalismCalifornia Tonalism
California Tonalism was art movement that existed in California from circa 1890 to 1920. Tonalist are usually intimate works, painted with a limited palette. Tonalist paintings are softly expressive, suggestive rather than detailed, often depicting the landscape at twilight or evening, when...
took hold.
Many of the Northern California painters were influenced by the works of the French painters of the Barbizon School
Barbizon school
The Barbizon school of painters were part of a movement towards realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870...
who worked in the forest south of Paris in the mid-19th century as well as the American landscape master George Inness
George Inness
George Inness was an American landscape painter; born in Newburgh, New York; died at Bridge of Allan in Scotland. His work was influenced, in turn, by that of the old masters, the Hudson River school, the Barbizon school, and, finally, by the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg, whose spiritualism...
(1825–1894) and the American expatriate James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903). Northern California Tonalist landscapes can be recognized by its simplified compositions and an limited palette that gave the paintings close color harmonies. Some of the other major Northern California Tonalists were Arthur and Lucia Matthews, who headed of the Bay Area Arts and Crafts Movement, the morose and melancholy moonlight painter Charles Rollo Peters (1862–1928), the flamboyant Xavier Martinez (1869–1943) and the painter and muralist Giuseppe Cadenasso (1858–1918). While many of the Northern California painters did paint extensively out of doors, most of the works were done in their studio, stylized and poetic visions, a step away from the type of Plein-Air "visual snapshot" or "impression" favored by the French school.
After 1915 and the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, which brought many French and American Impressionist masterworks to San Francisco, more Northern California painters adopted a more chromatic palette and dappled brushwork that was closer to French Impressionism and they adopted high-key midday subjects. Some of the best known Northern California painters who worked in a more impressionistic manner were the marine painter Armin Hansen, the coastal landscape painter Bruce Nelson and E. Charlton Fortune (1885–1969), a talented Monterey woman who gave up easel painting for ecclesiastical decoration. Two of the most prominent California Impressionists who lived in Carmel and were known for their marine subjects were William Ritschel and Paul Dougherty
Paul Dougherty
Paul Dougherty is an English former professional footballer and football coach who began his career with Wolverhampton Wanderers in England...
, both of whom developed national reputations long before they moved west.
Southern California Impressionism
Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
developed more slowly than the San Francisco, where the California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
caused the rapid expansion of its wealth and art scene, so there were few artists and even fewer collectors in the years before the turn of the 20th century. As first the Painters Club (1906) and then the California Art Club
California Art Club
The California Art Club , founded in 1909, is one of the oldest and most active arts organizations in California. It celebrated its centennial in the spring of 2010. The California Art Club originally evolved from the Painters Club of Los Angeles...
(1909) were founded and the first commercial galleries opened, Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
began to draw artists and patrons and a bright, airy Impressionist aesthetic became dominant. This coincided with a tremendous population boom in Southern California. From early in the 20th century, Southern California painters generally worked in a much higher key then their Northern California contemporaries. This seems almost natural, for the Southland was a land of almost perpetual sunshine. The painters didn't need the earth tones that were favored by the Northern California painters and instead adopted a broad, chromatic palette that helped them to capture the brilliant light that bathed the hills and valleys of Southern California. William Wendt
William Wendt
William Wendt was an American landscape painter. He was called the "Dean of Southern California landscape painters."Wendt was a founding member of the California Art Club, along with his wife Julia Bracken Wendt, and served as its president for six years.Wendt built his studio in Laguna Beach,...
, one of the founders and the long serving president of the California Art Club was a bold stylist known for his paintings of California in the springtime. The Austrian Franz Bischoff and the Alsatian-born Jean Mannheim were both converts to California Impressionism. Guy Rose, whose father was a leading rancher was a Los Angeles native who was trained in San Francisco and Paris and while in France he became an enthusiastic proponent of Impressionism. He only came home in 1914, after years of living in the Giverny
Giverny
Giverny is a commune in the Eure department in north-western France. It is best known as the location of Claude Monet's garden and home.-Location:Giverny sits on the "right bank" of the River Seine where the river Epte meets the Seine...
art colony.
The Decline of California Impressionism
The decline of the California Plein-Air Movement was gradual. While art historians have described California Impressionism's long popularity as "the Indian Summer of American Impressionism," the movement eventually began to give way to more modern movements, both in the press and among collectors. The Great Depression was severe blow to the art market. The economy made life rough for the galleries the lack of sales hastened the decline of the Plein-Air school. As modernism began to supplant the artists of the Southland art organizations in the museums, a long series of artistic battles were fought, with the modernists on one side and the traditionalists on the other and no one seemed to believe that co-existence was possible. When the older Plein-Air painters, most of whom were then entering their later years, were vanquished, they left the scene in bitter defeat. By the late 1940s, most of the artists who had exhibited extensively in the 1920s had died and the remaining painters were often reduced to showing in lesser venues alongside hobby painters and artists of lesser talent and by the 1960s, the strength, breadth and vitality that the California Impressionist movement had at its peak was largely forgotten.The Revival of Interest in Early California Impressionism
Historically, from the time that interest in the first generation of Plein-Air Painters like Edgar Payne, William Wendt and Marion Wachtel began to wane in the 1930s, there was little interest in Early California paintings for more than thirty years. Even the masterworks of California Impressionism were available for a few thousand dollars or less. When the Southland painters of the 1920s were discussed, they were often derisively called The Eucalyptus School. Led by a number of pioneering art historians like Nancy Moure, then with the Los Angeles County Museum of ArtLos Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
in Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
and Harvey Jones of the Oakland Museum of California
Oakland Museum of California
Oakland Museum of California or Oakland Museum is a museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California located in Oakland, California....
in Northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
, dealers, collectors art writers began to recognize that a major movement of Impressionist-influenced painters had been active in California between 1910 and 1940. Interest in California's Plein-Air painters was aided by the historic preservation movement and interest in the Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
in California.
As interest in the American Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
increased and historic preservation
Historic preservation
Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...
became popular, young curators, art historians and art dealers began to mount exhibits and write books and articles on California Plein-Air Painting. By the 1980s, there was a broad interest in California Impressionism. Now, there are dozens of commercial galleries specializing in this group of artists, a broad base of collectors, a number of museums with extensive collections and hundreds of scholarly and "coffee table" books on the movement. By the late 1970s, galleries and antique "pickers" were beginning to recognize that the Plein-Air School was good business as there were thousands of paintings in the homes of aging residents and available in flea markets and second-hand stores. The second generation dealer Jean Stern, who was then at the helm of the Peterson Gallery in Beverly Hills hosted retrospective exhibitions for Franz Bischoff and other artists of the Plein-Air school with small color catalogs, signaling that the early painters of Los Angeles were worthy of both scholarly and commercial attention. Jean Stern's younger brother George Stern, an attorney, opened the George Stern Gallery in Encino and Ray Redfern, another second generation dealer, took over the family firm from his mother and began to specialize in the works of the Laguna Beach painters. Marian Bowater opened the Bowater Gallery on La Cienega Boulevard's "Gallery Row"and began to specialize in Plein-Air Painters. In 1977 the Laguna Art Museum
Laguna Art Museum
The Laguna Art Museum is a museum located in Laguna Beach, California on Pacific Coast Highway.An exhibition titled ...
hosted a retrospective for William Wendt, the most important figure in early Los Angeles painting,which was curated by Nancy Moure. The following year Moure released her landmark Dictionary of Art and Artists in Southern California Before 1930, which, for the first time allowed collectors to know whose work it was they were looking at. Moure also curated a retrospective exhibition for the Laguna Beach Museum with illustrations of works by dozens of painters who had been active there.
In 1981 in conjunction with the Los Angeles Bicentennial, an exhibition of early California painting was held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and commercial venues like Peterson Galleries and Morseburg Galleries also hosted exhibitions that were part of the city's official activities. In 1982 the well-crafted book Plein-Air Painters of California: The Southland was published by Ruth Lilly Westphal. Written by Westphal, with introductory essays by Terry DeLapp, Thomas Kenneth Enman, Nancy Moure, Martin Peterson and Jean Stern, the book, which had short essays on dozens of painters, had the effect of separating the values of the painters whose works were included in book from those who were not, perhaps a mixed blessing, but it also gave new collectors a group of names to shoot for. Westphal followed the first book with Plein-Air Painters of California: The North, in 1986. Magazines like the California history magazine the Californians, Antiques and Fine Art, Art and Antiques and Tom Kellaway's reorganized American Art Review also played an important role in publishing articles on the California Plein-Air painters and carrying advertisements from the galleries that spread awareness of the movement.
The California Plein-Air Revival
By the late 1980s, because of the tremendous interest in the early California Plein-Air Painters, collectors gradually became interested in younger painters who were working in the same tradition. In the case of Peter Seitz AdamsPeter Seitz Adams
Peter Seitz Adams is one of California’s most recognized landscape and figurative painters and an important figure in contemporary Southern California art. He is the longest serving President of the California Art Club and a member of the Board of Directors of the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena...
(b. 1950), Arny Karl
Arny Karl
Arny Karl was one of the key artists in the early stages of the California Plein-Air Revival, which started in the 1980s and continues to this day...
(1940–2000) and Tim Solliday
Tim Solliday
Tim Solliday is a contemporary California Plein-Air Painter and Western Artist who is known for his San Gabriel Valley landscapes and his paintings of American Indians and other western subjects. He studied with the California Impressionist portrait and landscape painter Theodore Lukits in the...
(b. 1952) the artists were students of one of the original Plein-Air painters, the portrait artist and plein-air pastelist Theodore Lukits
Theodore Lukits
Theodore Nikolai Lukits was a California portrait and landscape painter. His initial fame came from his portraits of some of the most glamorous actresses of the Silent Film era, but since his death, his Asian-inspired works, figures drawn from Hispanic California and his pastel landscapes have all...
(1897–1992) and these three artists had been sketching together since the 1970s. In the case of Dan Pinkham, Joseph Mendez and Sunny Apinchapong Yang, they had studied under the Russian Impressionist Sergei Bongart
Sergei Bongart
20th Century Russian painter Sergei Bongart was born in Kiev in Ukraine. He studied art in Kiev, Prague, Vienna and Munich, before emigrating to the United States in 1948. Bongart lived 6 years in Memphis, Tennessee, location of his sponsor. In 1954 he moved to Los Angeles where he founded an art...
(1918–1985) while the Ojai painter Richard Rackus (b. 1922) had studied in the late 1930s and early 1940s when many of the original California Impressionists were still teaching. This loose group of plein-air painters were exhibiting their work at a number of commercial galleries including Poulsen Galleries in Pasadena and Morseburg Galleries in Los Angeles. At the same time, a number of other out-door painters formed a new organization, the Plein-Air of America ("PAPA"). Their first exhibition, the 1st Annual Plein-Air Painters Festival, was organized in 1986 by the artist Denise Burns and Roy Rose, the grand-nephew of the Impressionist Roy Rose. This annual painting festival and sale was held on Santa Catalina Island until 2003 as the organization expanded well beyond the boundaries of California. In Santa Barbara, a group of younger painters was also coming together, grouped around the elderly regionalist Ray Strong
Ray Strong
Ray Stanford Strong was an American painter from Corvallis, Oregon. His paintings usually depict the California landscape.-External links:* Oregon Historical Quarterly, 109.1. The History Cooperative*...
(1905–2006). This group of artists was formalized as the Oak Group in 1985 and it spread interest in plein-air painting promoted environmental awareness on the Central California Coast. Perhaps the major turning point in the California Plein-Air Revival was the reorganization and revitalization of the historic California Art Club in 1993 under the leadership of Peter and Elaine Adams. Adams recruited most of the recognized contemporary California landscape painters for the revived CAC and it soon began to sponsor exhibitions that helped to expand what had been a number of loosely affiliated artists into a broad and well-organized movement.
The Revitalization of the California Art Club
By the early 1990s, Peter Seitz Adams and a number of other Contemporary Traditional Artists saw the need for an organization that could help to bring order to what they saw as the reemerging traditional art movement in California. Adams and his wife Elaine and Jeffrey Morseburg had been discussing the need for an organization that could mount exhibitions and promote the artists who were reviving California Plein-Air Painting. In 1993, when Verna Guenther, who was a member of the historic California Art Club, came to Morseburg to see if he knew anyone younger who would be capable of taking over the venerable organization that then consisted of an aging cohort of painters, Morseburg suggested Peter and Elaine Adams. The Adams saw the value in taking over an existing organization to promote traditional fine arts rather than forming a new one. Peter Adams soon accepted the Presidency of the California Art Club and has served in that capacity since that time. In order to reorganize the California Art Club, Adams recruited most of the active professional landscape and figurative painters that he knew. The core group of artists who became members of the reorganized California Art Club primarily consisted of students of Theodore Lukits or Sergei Bongart. Among the first group of painters to join the CAC included Tim Solliday, Bill Stout, Stephen Mirich, Steve Houston, Dan Goozee, Dan Pinkham, Sunny Apinchapong, Richard Rackus (b.1922) and the Russian painters, Alexander Orlov and Alexey SteeleAlexey Steele
Alexey Steele is an American painter of the Russian Representational School and a Soviet Art scholar. He moved to Los Angeles in 1990. Steele gained recognition for his unusual multi-figure compositions of an exceptionally large scale. His areas of expertise also include portraits, nudes and...
. Because of the tremendous influx of academically trained Chinese painters in California, Adams and the CAC added painters like Mian Situ, Michael Situ, and Jove Wang to its roster. Some of the artists who had been vital members of the California Art Club prior to the Adams administration, such as Don and Wanda Duborow and Rolf and Evelyn Zilmner, who was Chairman of the Gold Medal Exhibition, played important roles in the revitalization. The re-organized California Art Club soon began organizing museum shows devoted to both its historic and contemporary members and soon the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, the Frederick R. Weissman Museum at Pepperdine and other institutions were hosting exhibitions. A newsletter with articles by recognized scholars and exhibition catalogs contributed to making the works of the CAC's plein-Air painters and other artists more widely known. The organization also held frequent "paint outs" where artists met and worked on location as a group. As the reorganized California Art Club matured, the emphasis on plein-air painting, the focus of many of the artists began to shift somewhat as more experienced figurative artists joined the organization. .
The Contemporary California Plein-Air Scene
The contemporary California Plein-Air movement consisted of organizations like the California Art Club and its affiliated chapters, the Oak Group in Santa Barbara and a number of commercial galleries in Los Angeles, San Diego, Laguna Beach, Carmel and San Francisco. Within the California Art Club there is a core group of painters that are in virtually every annual Gold Medal Exhibition and many of its thematic shows. This group includes David Gallup, Dan Pinkham, Stephen Mirich, Peter Adams, John Budicin, Alexey Steele, Tim Solliday, Rodolfo Rivadamar, Karl Dempwolf and John Cosby. There is also a community of artists from mainland China in the California Art Club that includes Mian Situ, Calvin Liang, Michael Situ, Simon Lok and Ruo Li. In the last ten years, a group of leading younger artists, now in their thirties, has also emerged which includes Glenn Dean, Eric Merrell, Jeremy Lipking and Ernesto Nemesio. Santa Barbara's Oak Group exhibits in and around that city and raises funds for the protection of open spaces. The painters who have been most active on the Santa Barbara plein-air scene have been Meredith Brooks Abbott, Marcia Burtt, Bjorn Rye, Richard Schloss, Arthur Tello, Jon Comer and the late Glenna Hartman (1948–2008). The Laguna Plein-Air Painters Association is a newer organization that hosts an annual exhibition each fall. Its membership consists mainly of Orange County artists including Ken Auster, David Damm, Marcil Burtt, Michael Obermeyer, Ray Roberts, Michael Situ, Jeffrey Watts and Richard KeyesRichard Keyes
Richard D. Keyes is an American painter associatedwith abstract expressionism, impressionist landscapes and the California Plein-Air Paintingrevival. Keyes is now a Professor Emeritis at Long Beach City College, where he...
. Plein-Air painters of America, which began as a California organization, is now national in scope, but it still has a strong California membership, which includes Lynn Gertenbach, John Budicin, Gil Dellinger, Michael Siu, Calvin Liang, Louise DeMore and Joseph Mendez.
Contemporary Writers, Curators and Authorities on California Art
- Harvey Jones (Oakland Museum of California)
- Jean Stern (The Irvine Museum)
- Nancy Dustin Wall Moure
- Roy Rose
- Dr. Will South
- Ruth Westphal
- Dr. Willam Gerdts
- Patricia Trenton
- Elaine Adams
- Peter Adams
- Dr. Jane Dini
- Maureen St. Gaudens
- Janet Dominik
- Susan Landauer
- Elaine Adams (CAC)
- Peter Seitz Adams (CAC)
- Nat B. Read
- Terry St. John
See also
- French Impressionism
- American ImpressionismAmerican ImpressionismImpressionism, a style of painting characterized by loose brushwork and vivid colors, was practiced widely among American artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.-An emerging artistic style from Paris:...
- California TonalismCalifornia TonalismCalifornia Tonalism was art movement that existed in California from circa 1890 to 1920. Tonalist are usually intimate works, painted with a limited palette. Tonalist paintings are softly expressive, suggestive rather than detailed, often depicting the landscape at twilight or evening, when...
- California Art ClubCalifornia Art ClubThe California Art Club , founded in 1909, is one of the oldest and most active arts organizations in California. It celebrated its centennial in the spring of 2010. The California Art Club originally evolved from the Painters Club of Los Angeles...
- American Barbizon schoolAmerican Barbizon schoolThe American Barbizon School was a group of painters and style partly influenced by the French Barbizon school. American Barbizon artists concentrated on painting rural landscapes often including peasants or farm animals....
- Barbizon SchoolBarbizon schoolThe Barbizon school of painters were part of a movement towards realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870...
- William WendtWilliam WendtWilliam Wendt was an American landscape painter. He was called the "Dean of Southern California landscape painters."Wendt was a founding member of the California Art Club, along with his wife Julia Bracken Wendt, and served as its president for six years.Wendt built his studio in Laguna Beach,...
- Edgar Payne
- Paul DoughertyPaul DoughertyPaul Dougherty is an English former professional footballer and football coach who began his career with Wolverhampton Wanderers in England...
- Guy RoseGuy RoseGuy Rose was an American Impressionist painter who is recognized as one of California's top impressionist painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries....
- Mary Agnes YerkesMary Agnes YerkesMary Agnes Yerkes, , , was an American Impressionist painter, photographer and artisan. She was skilled in the mediums of oil, pastel and watercolor. Her professional career was cut short by the Great Depression, but she still continued to paint well into her nineties with a passion for her craft...
External links
- California Art Club Official Site
- Plein-Air Painters of America
- Laguna Plein-Air Painters
- Irvine Museum, Collection of California Impressionism
- Oakland Museum of California, Large Collection of California Art
- Museum of Art, Collection of California Impressionism
- Weisman Museum, Pepperdine, Venue for Special On Location in Malibu Exhibitions
- Web site Devoted to the Life and Art of Thedore Lukits, CAC Life Member
- Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Collection of Plein-Air Pastels including CAC Members Living and Deceased