Art in the Adobes, Sept 30 through October 2, 2011

Early California Art lovers are looking forward to “Art in the Adobes”, a unique event taking place in downtown Monterey September 30^th through October 2^nd.  During the weekend, a number of important paintings by a variety of Early Monterey artists will be on view.  The title of the Exhibition is “Hidden Treasures from Old Monterey”, since many of the paintings have rarely been seen by the public until now. The exhibition focuses on local artists from the Monterey area who worked during the late 18^th century and early 19^th century. The works will be displayed simultaneously in a number of historic venues, including the Stevenson House, The Cooper-Molera Adobe, and ColtonHall, site of the 1849 California Convention.

Note: Images posted in this blog are NOT paintings that will be on display at this event (those will remain “hidden” until the Festival begins on the 30^th).  Images seen in this post are paintings by artists represented at the event, and several of the works are currently available to interested collectors through Karges Fine Art.  

Paintings that will be on display during Art at the Adobes include works by noted marine artist Armin Hansen, Charles Rollo Peters, and Mary DeNeale Morgan. 

Armin Hansen settled in the Monterey area in 1913, and was one of the founders of the Carmel Art Association.   One of his oversize masterpieces will be on view at Casa Serrano during the Festival.  He is best remembered for his dramatic depictions of coastal scenes, boats, and local fishermen.

Fisher's Landing by Armin Hansen

Mary DeNeale Morgan settled in Carmel in 1909, and attended summer art classes that were led by William Merritt Chase. She later became the director of the Carmel School of Art from 1917-1925.  

On Sunday, October 2^nd, 2011, Lila Staples, Chair of the Visual and Public Art Department at California State University Monterey Bay, will present a lecture and slide discussion focusing on women artists of Monterey’s early years.   Scott Shields, Chief Curator of the Crocker Art Museum, will be on hand Saturday October 1^st at Monterey City Hall with a lecture titled “When Monterey was Modern: The Peninsula’s Early Art Colony and its Place in California Art”.

Works by Christian Jorgensen (1860 – 1935) will be on display at the Cooper-Molera Adobe, a National Historic Trust site.  He is best remembered for his intricately detailed coastal scenes featuring the distinctive local Cypress trees.  In 1905 he and his wife Angela built a boulder home in Carmel, which later became the Hotel La Playa.

Christian Jorgensen -  Coastal Cypress     SOLD

Charles Rollo Peters, known for his quiet, contemplative nocturnes, will also be represented at the event.  The MontereyMuseum of Art  will mount a special display of important paintings on loan, and the StevensonHouse will also provide a temporary home to paintings by Peters and his second wife, Constance Evans Easley Peters.

Charles Rollo Peters "Adobe  SOLD

The Monterey Public library will have paintings on display by local artists Arthur Hill Gilbert, Francis McComas, and Abel Warshawsky.  

Abel Warshawsky - Coastal Scene

Francis McComas, noted for his delicate watercolors, studied with Arthur Mathews (a central figure in the San Francisco Bay Area art scene) at the Mark Hopkins Institute in San Francisco at the turn of the century.

Francis McComas "Monterey Oaks"

 

For additional information, details, and tickets to the Art in the Adobes event, please visit the official website at www.artintheadobes.org  

Three Important Exhibits on Display at the Crocker Art Museum

The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento currently has three outstanding exhibitions of early California and American paintings on display.  The museum, which unveiled a new 125,000 square foot addition in October of 2010, also has a strong permanent collection of Early California art.  The exhibitions currently open to the public also include works from the Brooklyn Museum and the Bank of America Collection.

The first exhibit, which opened on May 14^th, 2011, is titled “Transcending Vision: American Impressionism, 1870-1940”.  This collection of paintings by American Artists who were influenced by the French Impressionist movement features 125 works by a diverse group.  Paintings by notable and influential American artists George Inness and George Bellows are included in the exhibition, which ends on September 25^th, 2011.

Another exhibition of interest to admirers of Early American art is “Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism”,  which opened to the public on June 11^th, and runs through September 18^th.  This display includes approximately 40 landscape paintings from the Brooklyn Museum.  Both French and American artists are represented in a group of works from the mid-nineteenth through the early twentieth-century.   Works by John Singer Sargent and Childe Hassam are prominently featured.

The third show currently on display at the Crocker is titled “Gardens and Grandeur: Porcelains andPaintings by Franz A. Bischoff”.  The collection went on view June 25^th, and the exhibition continues through October 23^rd, 2011.  The exhibit chronicles the history and career of the “King of the Rose Painters”, and features approximately 40 examples of this artist’s work. 

Remembered primarily for his floral still lifes, Franz Bischoff was one of the finest early California Impressionists, and an outstanding colorist.  For additional information about this important Southern California artist, see our Blog entry which was posted last December.

For additional information about the Crocker Museum, including operating hours and directions, please visit their website at www.crockerartmuseum.org  

The Quiet Landscapes of Russell Chatham

Born in 1939, a native of San Francisco, Russell Chatham was an active artist in Livingston, Montana since 1972.  A talented, self-taught painter, illustrator, and writer, his works were often highly evocative with soft tonal qualities.  He was also considered one of the world’s foremost lithographers.    

"Spring Moonrise", Lithograph

His grandfather, Gottardo Piazzoni (1872 – 1945),  was a well known early California artist and is also remembered for his simple compositions and quiet, muted colors.

Russell Chatham’s landscapes often revealed his fascination with the changing seasons and the subtle nuances of light and shadow.  His works often depicted quiet moments of solitude and spirituality.  Of his work, he said:  "Creating art is an attempt to search for something beyond ourselves".

"Winter Moonrise" 12 x 16 Oil on board - SOLD

This painting shown above, “Winter Moonrise”, is signed by the artist, on the right side, with his personally developed calligraphic character, placed within a double oval.  Chatham developed this character in his late twenties.  It was based on the distinctive shape of the little slough that lies at the head of Tamales Bay in Marin County.   

Chatham moved to Marin in 1949.  He placed this monogram, rather than a traditional signature, on all his works since his late twenties.  He said that this two dimensional calligraphic character “represents the epicenter of my relationship to the natural world”.  He also noted that “I was never comfortable seeing my name written on the face of the pictures, partly I suppose because visual and verbal language seem so at odds with each other.  But using the monogram, and doing so very discreetly, seems to help soften the presence of my hand, moving it into the shadows where it belongs.”  

"Landscape" 7 x 9 inches  SOLD

His personal interests included fly fishing, hunting, and conservation, and he wrote numerous essays and short stories on these topics.   In 1990, he began working on a series of twelve large paintings for the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana.   

 

Chatham had hundreds of exhibitions in galleries and museums over the course of his lifetime, though he is not a prolific painter.  He sometimes only completed six or seven large paintings a year.  This kind, talented and important artist passed away on November 10th, 2019 at the age of 80 and will be remembered fondly.

For additional information on available paintings by this remarkable artist, feel free to contact Patrick Kraft at William A. Karges Fine Art in Carmel, California at (800) 833-9185.