California Art Club - Rebirth of Early California Impressionism

Rebirth of Early California Impressionism

The rebirth and steady growth of the California Art Club would not have been possible without the tremendous groundswell of interest in California Plein-Air Painting or California Impressionism as the two terms are used interchangeably. The gradual revival of interest in historic California artists made it possible for the living painters who work in the same tradition to thrive. Historically, from the time interest in the first generation of Plein-Air Painters like Edgar Payne, William Wendt, and Marion Wachtel began to decline in the 1930s, until the 1970s, and there was little interest in Early California paintings; even masterworks of California Impressionism were available for just a few thousand dollars. They were undervalued and dismissed as "The Eucalyptus School". Led by a number of pioneering Art Historians like Nancy Moure, then with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Southern California, and Harvey Jones of the Oakland Museum in Northern California, dealers, collectors and art writers began to recognize the major movement of Impressionist-influenced painters that 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 California Arts and Crafts 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 local residents, 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 artists of the Plein-Air School with small color catalogs, signaling that the early painters of Los Angeles were worthy of attention. His younger brother George Stern, an attorney, opened the George Stern Gallery in Encino. Raymond Redfern, another second generation dealer began to specialize in the works of the Laguna Beach painters in the Orange County area. De McCall, a Bellflower art restorer, began to buy and sell the works of the California Impressionists. Marion Bowater opened the Bowater Gallery on La Cienega's Gallery row and began to specialize in Plein-Air Painters. In 1977, the Laguna Museum hosted a retrospective for William Wendt, the most important figure in early Los Angeles painting, an exhibition that was curated by Nancy Moure. The following year, Moure released her landmark, Dictionary of Art and Artists in Southern California Before 1930, which allowed collectors to identify the artist they were rediscovering.

In 1981 in conjunction with the Los Angeles Bicentennial, an exhibition of early California paintings was held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as well as The Peterson Gallery and Morseburg Gallery, which hosted exhibitions as part of the official bicentennial activities. In 1982 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 elavated the value of those art works it included and gave new collectors a group of artists to look for. By the end of the 1980s, major works by California painters could demand more than one-hundred thousand dollars and significant paintings by most of the best known painters ranged in the tens of thousands of dollars. This meant that new collectors, drawn to the en plein air style and California subjects, would see that collecting the work of contemporary artists working in the same tradition as a way of owning Impressionist paintings for an affordable price.