California Artists: 19th-21st Century
(above: Franz Arthur Bischoff, Gold Rimmed Rocks and Sea, c. 1929, ArtDaily.com. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)
Books:
60 California art books including:
All Things Bright and Beautiful: California Impressionist Paintings from The Irvine Museum, by William H. Gerdts
Art of the Gold Rush, By Janice Tolhurst Driesbach, Harvey Jones, Katherine Church Holland, Oakland Museum, Crocker Art Museum, National Museum of American Art (U.S.).
Published 1998 by University of California Press. Art, American / California/ 19th century/ Exhibitions. 168 pages. ISBN:0520214315. Google Books says: "The California Gold Rush captured the get-rich dreams of people around the world more completely than almost any event in American history. This catalog, published in celebration of the sesquicentennial of the 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, shows the vitality of the arts in the Golden State during the latter nineteenth century and documents the dramatic impact of the Gold Rush on the American imagination.Among the throngs of gold-seekers in California were artists, many self-taught, others formally trained, and their arrival produced an outpouring of artistic works that provide insights into Gold Rush events, personages, and attitudes. The best-known painting of the Gold Rush era, C.C. Nahl's Sunday Morning in the Mines (1872), was created nearly two decades after gold fever had subsided. By then the Gold Rush's mythic qualities were well established, and new allegories--particularly the American belief in the rewards of hard work and enterprise--can be seen on Nahl's canvas. Other works added to the image of California as a destination for ambitious dreamers, an image that prevails to this day. In bringing together a range of art and archival material such as artists' diaries and contemporary newspaper articles, The Art of the Gold Rush broadens our understanding of American culture during a memorable period in the nation's history."
California Art: 450 Years of Painting & Other Media, by Nancy Dustin Wall Moure. 560 pages. Publisher: Dustin Publications; 1 edition (November 15, 1998). ISBN-10: 0961462248. ISBN-13: 978-0961462246 Amazon.com says of this book from Library Journal: As California approaches its sesquicentennial in 2000, here is the first "comprehensive" survey of its art. Unfortunately, freelance curator Moure does not make a clear case here for what makes a work of art distinctly "Californian" and further fails to define the book's scope. Still, she has done a creditable job. Her focus includes all two- and three-dimensional media created (by Californians and non-Californians) within the state, as well as work done abroad by prominent Golden Staters. Her bias in favor of "high" vs. "low" art is problematic, since it leads her to exclude filmmaking (the state's most powerful aesthetic contribution) while finding space for "Hollywood Glamour Photography." Similarly, Moure omits California's vernacular architecture in favor of recent, well-publicized museum buildings. On the other hand, she lucidly distinguishes between art's separate evolution in Northern and Southern California. Moure's extensive knowledge and trenchant commentary relieves what could have been a tedious approach. A de rigueur purchase for West Coast libraries and larger collections nationwide?Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L., CA - Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
California Impressionism, by William H. Gerdts and Will South, Published 1998, ISBN: 978-0-7892-0176-8. (left: catalogue front cover courtesy Abbeville Press)
California Impressionists, by Susan Landauer, Donald D. Keyes, Jean Stern, Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, Georgia Museum of Art, Irvine Museum. Published 1996 by University of California Press. Impressionism (Art )/ California, Southern / Exhibitions. 103 pages. ISBN:0915977257. Google Books says: "The years around the turn of the century were a dynamic time in American art. Different and seemingly contradictory movements were evolving, and the dominant style that emerged during this period was Impressionism. Based in part on the broken brushwork and high-keyed palette of Claude Monet, it was a form especially suited to the dramatic landscape and shimmering light of California. American Impressionism grew in popularity as artists from across the nation migrated to the Golden State. There they created a remarkable style, often referred to as California plein-air painting, combining several aspects of American and European art and capturing the brilliant mix of color and light that defined California.This book celebrates forty Impressionist painters who worked in California from 1900 through the beginning of the Great Depression. A joint effort of The Irvine Museum and the Georgia Museum of Art, it includes widely recognized California artists such as Maurice Braun and Guy Rose, less well known artists such as Mary DeNeale Morgan and Donna Schuster, and eastern painters who worked briefly in the region, such as Childe Hassam and William Merritt Chase.The contributors' essays examine the socioeconomic forces that shaped this art movement, as well as the ways in which the art reflected California's self-cultivated image as a healthful, sun-splashed arcadia. Beautifully illustrated, with 72 full-color plates, California Impressionists recreates the vibrant splendor of a unique period in American art." .
California Light 1900-1930, by Bram Dijkstra, William H. Gerdts, Patricia Trenton
California Light: Paintings of the California Art Club, by Molly Siple, Jean Stern
In and Out of California: Travels of American Impressionists, by Deborah Epstein Solon, Will South. 151 pages. ISBN:1555952259. (left: front cover, In and Out of California: Travels of American Impressionists, image courtesy Google Books)
The Not-so-still Life: A Century of California Painting and Sculpture, by Susan Landauer, William Gerdts, Patricia Trenton, San Jose Museum of Art. Published 2003 by University of
California Press. Still-life in art / Exhibitions. 237 pages. ISBN:0520239385. Google Books says: "As E. H. Gombrich once observed, the still life is compelled to challenge and at the same time perpetuate tradition. Without the elements of recognition and comparison, and the discovery of the familiar in the unfamiliar, the genre would lose most of its meaning. This lavishly illustrated volume documents the extraordinary challenges that artists in California have brought to the tradition of the still life as they have transformed and revitalized the genre over the course of the last century. In abundantly illustrated essays, as entertaining as they are informative, The Not-So-Still Life traces the great variety of media and forms these artists have engaged as they have moved the still life not just off the table, but off the wall and into three dimensions. Susan Landauer, William H. Gerdts, and Patricia Trenton investigate a range of forces and influences--whether historical, sociological, economic, psychological, or biographical--that have played into this evolution, from the plein-air Impressionism of the early twentieth century to the Synchromist bouquets of Stanton Macdonald-Wright, the revolving table settings of Charles Ray, and the electronic sculptures of Alan Rath. In doing so they deepen our understanding of American art over the last century.Presenting, interpreting, and celebrating the world-renowned and the lesser-known California artists who have uniquely defined and redefined the still life, this volume offers an exploration of the sensual pleasures, the aesthetic challenges, and the intellectual and perceptual associations of a century of art through the prism of a single genre."
Publications in Southern California Art 1, 2 and 3, by Nancy Dustin Wall Moure
Publications in Southern California Art 4, 5, 6 and 7, by Nancy Dustin Wall Moure
Publications in Southern California Art 8, 9, 10, by Nancy Dustin Wall Moure
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