<p>As cultural theorists often enjoy pointing out, Southern California, with its motion picture, television, and aerospace industries, is the mecca of artificial culture. In this "here-today-gone-tomorrow" culture, our history has traditionally has been trivialized and discarded, leaving a great deal of the past for us to excavate. Laguna Beach and the Laguna Beach Art Association (the present day Laguna Art Museum) have stood at the center of another sort of culture in Southern California for more than eighty years. From the turn of the century through the 1930's, Laguna Beach was home to the most significant artists' colony on the Pacific Coast. The Laguna Art Museum has been not only the focal point of this art colony but, for the last twenty years, instrumental in uncovering its history as well. Through exhibitions and catalogues such as William Wendt 1865-1946, Early Artists in Laguna Beach: The Impressionists, and California Light 1900-1930, the Museum has explored, and indeed developed, its rich local art history. Along with The Oakland Museum of California, it has been at the forefront of a trend among California museums to focus on regional history, including the Impressionist movement that was centered in Laguna Beach. More recently, The Irvine Museum has devoted considerable efforts to this subject matter as well. What is missing from the many exhibitions originated on this subject is one placing California Impressionism and the art colony in Laguna Beach within the national content. The art colonies that developed at the turn of the century in Cos Cob and Old Lyme, Connecticut, or Shinnecock , Long Island, for example, bear many resemblance, as well as differences, to the growth and popularity of Laguna Beach. The idea for this book came from the Museum's exhibitions committee, an advisory group of curators and art historians who specialize in California art.</p>

Colonies of American Impressionism: Cos Cob, Old Lyme, Shinnecock, and Laguna Beach

Solon, Deborah Epstein

South, Will

Laguna Art Museum (Laguna Beach, Calif.)

Arts & Photography

Laguna Art Museum

<p>In and Out of California: Travels of American Impressionists, published to accompany a traveling exhibition, is a revisionist study of artists working in California in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book presents an array of radiant paintings by artists identified traditionally with the history of art in California. The essays by Deborah Epstein Solon and Dr. Will South, however, establish that artists were "out" of California as much as they were "in" during this critical period in American painting. Artists living in California traveled and painted all over the world, often simultaneously maintaining studios in different areas of the country and even in Europe. Scores of artists who worked in California received the same training in academies in both Europe and the United States as those artists who settled in the East - yet their Eastern compatriots have been studied and lauded with a respect thus far denied their Western counterparts. Artists working in California often experienced a two pronged disadvantage: they were either glorified by Western critics - occasionally unjustly - or summarily dismissed by the Eastern art establishment in an equally unjust fashion.</p>

In and Out of California: Travels of American Impressionists

This beautiful volume provides the first comprehensive survey of the Impressionist art of a generation of radiant California artists.

History & Criticism

Hudson Hills Pr

This American Impressionist painter presents his work within an exploration of time the years that bracket the centennial and World War II. With the recent reconsideration of Impressionism in California as part of the mainstream, Clark is now emerging as one of its most notable practitioners.

An American Impressionist: The Art and Life of Alson Skinner Clark

Architecture

Pasadena Museum of California Art

Jessie Arms Botke, a famous 20th Century artist, painted in Chicago and Monterey before settling in Ventura County with her husband, Cornelis Botke, also a famous painter and etcher. This book is lavishly illustrated with the most beautiful of her paintings and murals. The artistic analysis is most helpful and emphasizes the profound influence of Japanese art on Botke's style and palatte. This book is a great introduction to Jessie Botke's art and life.

Birds, Boughs & Blossoms: Jessie Arms Botke, 1883-1971

Trenton, Patricia

Biographies & Memoirs

William a Karges Fine Art

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Solon, Deborah Epstein. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Solon, Deborah Epstein

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Solon, Deborah Epstein. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Colonies of American Impressionism: Cos Cob, Old Lyme, Shinnecock, and Laguna Beach

In and Out of California: Travels of American Impressionists

In and Out of California: Travels of American Impressionists

An American Impressionist: The Art and Life of Alson Skinner Clark

Birds, Boughs & Blossoms: Jessie Arms Botke, 1883-1971