Birth of a myth
At the heart of the myth of the American West, California has been a source of fantasy for artists from all over the world, before becoming a melting pot of pictorial schools. Its romantic landscapes contributed to the young America's quest for identity. On the other hand, the conquest of the West was documented by painters such as George Catlin (1796-1872), who set out to build an Indian museum. A portraitist of the American bourgeoisie, in 1828 he decided to concentrate on Native American civilizations. During his successive expeditions, he recorded the daily life of these populations. His richly detailed genre scenes depict clothing, weapons, body paint and customs in the vast landscapes of the Far West. This quasi-ethnological documentary work was continued by other painters and photographers trained in Europe.
At San Francisco's De Young Museum, the most comprehensive collection of American art of its kind spans the 17th century to the present day. Located in Golden Gate Park, this museum encompasses art from every continent. More than 27,000 works constitute a veritable national treasure. Its photography department traces the history of photography in America and Europe.
Photography
Photography is one of California's favorite fields. Two of Northern California's leading artists are Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams. Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) is best known for her photographs of the Great Depression following the crash of 1929. She documented rural misery on behalf of American government agencies. Her missions produced black-and-white portraits of profound humanity that continue to leave their mark.
The pioneer of ecological photography was Ansel Adams (1902-1984). He remains a benchmark in landscape photography. No one glorifies the majestic beauty of Yosemite National Park, the Pacific coast and Big Sur better than he did. The f/64 group he founded in 1932 with Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham heralded the beginnings of pure, unadulterated artistic photography. The "zone system" process, which he developed with Fred Archer, made it possible to adjust exposure and contrast to create unprecedented depth and clarity. In 1933, Ansel Adams opened the first photography and fine arts gallery in San Francisco. In 1945, he founded the photography department of the San Francisco Art Institute, the region's first program dedicated to photographic art. Today, Yosemite Village is home to theAnsel Adams Gallery.
California Impressionism
In painting, an Impressionist trend took hold at the turn of the 20th century. Artists painted en plein air, inspired by the wild landscapes of California. This trend spread to the coast around San Francisco Bay and to the southern part of the state in the 1920s and 1930s. The California Plein-Air School is characterized by its luminous tones and free brushstrokes, reminiscent of French Impressionism. This style continued to appeal in California later than in Europe.
California Impressionists gathered in the major cities of San Francisco, Pasadena and Los Angeles, or in Carmel-by-the-Sea and Laguna Beach. They formed associations, such as the Painters and Sculptors Club. The first representatives of this movement came from other states. However, one of the most famous, Guy Rose (1867-1925), was born into a well-to-do California family in San Gabriel, and rose to fame in the late 19th century. His oil still lifes were acclaimed at the Salons. In 1888, Rose headed for Paris, where he frequented the great names of the art world. Returning to the United States, he settled in New York as an illustrator. In 1899, he decided to acquire a residence in France, in Giverny, where he produced work influenced by Claude Monet, the master of the genre with whom he became friends. In 1914, the Rose family returned to Los Angeles, where he pursued a teaching career.
Northern tonalism
In Northern California, from the 1890s onwards, the second generation of painters turned away from grandiose landscapes in favor of a more intimate style. Color and the emotion generated by place were at the heart of this movement. William Keith, "the doyen of Northern California painters", initially devoted himself to large formats, until he made a turning point after a trip abroad. The atmosphere of a landscape he wished to purify came to the fore. He thus gave birth to tonalism, a trend that retranscribed the cool, misty climate of the North. The composition is sober, the chromatic range reduced. Among the members of this trend were Charles Rollo Peters, who painted in the moonlight, Xavier Martinez and muralist Giuseppe Cadenasso, two members of the Bohemian Club who put San Francisco on the world map. Also tonalists, Arthur and Lucia Mathews led the Bay Area Arts and Crafts Movement.
In 1915, the Palace of Fine Arts was built to host the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, which brought French Impressionism to San Francisco. The palette of California painters expanded. Painter E. Charlton Fortune forms the Carmel Art Colony, with teacher William Merritt Chase. Two painters already renowned for their marine views join the association, William Ritschel and Paul Dougherty.
Outdoor Art
In Southern California, the art scene was virtually non-existent until the 20th century. With the opening of the first art galleries, painters developed a colorful, luminous art, in tune with the sunny South. William Wendt paints California in spring. Guy Rose brings back the influence of Giverny. Others moved to California, such as Benjamin Brown and Fernand Lungren, a native of the Midwest, whose theme was the desert through the seasons. He founded the Santa Barbara School of the Arts in 1920. Perhaps the most influential painter of this movement was Richard E. Miller, whom Rose met in Giverny. Together, they taught in Pasadena. A painter of colored light, Miller gradually abandoned landscapes in favor of female models. His sharper drawing, more structured compositions and Renoir-like darkening palette had a strong influence on his contemporaries.
The Great Depression precipitated the decline of American Impressionism, which was soon replaced by Modernist explorations.
Bay Area Figurative Movement
The "San Francisco Bay Figurative Movement", or San Francisco School, was active in the 1950s-1960s. It brought together artists who proposed a figurative alternative to the then-dominant abstract expressionism. Their approach was supported by institutions such as the San Francisco Art Institute. Three generations of artists can be distinguished. The First Generation includes abstract painters David Park, Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff, Wayne Thiebaud and James Weeks. By the end of the 1940s, abstract art was being produced by many visual artists. However, the idea of completely abandoning the subject of their work did not convince them. In 1950, Californian David Park surprised us with his painting Kids on Bikes, revealing his subjects while remaining abstract. Two other generations followed: the "bridge generation" (Henrietta Berk, Paul Wonner, Nathan Oliveira and others) and the "second generation", which included students from the first generation.
After a stay in Mexico, Richard Diebenkorn once again became one of the movement's leaders in 1955. A painter of abstract expressionism, he gradually turned to figurative art. His Ocean Park series , painted between 1967 and 1988, made him an international icon and the symbol of the Bay Area Figurative School.
This movement was part of the San Francisco Renaissance, which swept through all creative fields between 1945 and 1960. Initially felt in poetry and literature, this renaissance took the form of readings given in art galleries, including the Six Gallery, which launched the Beat Generation. Harold Martin Silver, known as Jack Micheline, transcribed blues and jazz into paint. He exhibited murals at L'Abandon and Planet Bookstore in San Francisco at the time of his death on a train.
Photorealism
This movement, born in the 1960s, was inspired by New York pop art and minimalism. It emerged as a reaction to abstraction, a trend not widely followed in California. Photorealism is based on the most accurate possible reproduction of a photograph, whether in painting, sculpture or any other medium. Every human detail and expression is revealed to convey emotions or even political messages. The two great exponents of this style, Ralph Goings and Chuck Close, are both on show at SFMoMA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
A gallery of photorealistic works can be found at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento.
The revival of the outdoors
In the late 1970s, Theodore Lukits (1897-1992) invited his students to revive the Californian tradition of plein-air painting. Born in the 1950s, his students Peter Seitz Adams, Arny Karl and Tim Solliday traveled the region to paint, reinvigorating the California Art Club. The group exhibitions they organized imposed American Impressionism on the art market. California Plein-Air Painting attracted a growing number of collectors, historians and curators. On the Central Coast, the tradition was carried on by Ray Strong (1905-2006), who founded the Oak Group, which energized the art scene in the Santa Barbara area.
In 1981, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art devoted an exhibition to the birth of California plein air painting.
In 1985, artist Denise Burns formed the Plein-Air Painters of America (PAPA) association, and in 1986, together with Roy Rose, launched the annual Painters Festival on Santa Catalina Island. Outdoor events, in which artists paint in public, multiply. The Plein-Air Revival is responsible for this type of event, which is still very popular in California. The Santa Ana Festival and the Carmel-by-the-Sea Festival are particularly noteworthy.
At the same time, many art galleries in California specialize in Impressionism, such as the Laguna Museum of Art in Laguna Beach. The Irvine Museum, which covers California art, features an Impressionist collection.
Conceptual art
By the 1940s, artists were fleeing the Big Apple, too expensive and competitive, for Los Angeles. Art schools sprang up like mushrooms. They attracted illustrious teachers who trained future celebrities such as John Baldessari, Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy. For the record, McCarthy installed his "Tree", an inflatable sex toy -like sculpture, in the heart of Place Vendôme in Paris.
Conceptual artists John Baldessari (1931-2020) and Edward Ruscha (b. 1937) combine language, photography and pop art. Ruscha, admired for his artist's books, collaborated in 1962 on one of the first Pop Art exhibitions, "New Painting of Common Objects". The event brought together artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Jim Dine in Pasadena. Throughout their careers, Baldessari and Ruscha combined different means of expression to achieve unity, often in repetitive series. Baldessari stands out for his visual poetry, his collages designed to provoke the eye and the mind. After destroying his early paintings in the 1980s, he erased the faces from his photographs, replacing them with colored circles. His body of work was awarded the Golden Lion at the 53rd Venice Biennale.
Conceptual artist Barbara Kruger becomes famous for her black-and-white photomontages, inspired by newspaper clippings and emblazoned with slogans. Thinking of You can be admired at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
Performance
Mike Kelley (1954-2012) joined the Los Angeles art scene in 1976 and made a name for himself through his performances. His work revolves around large-scale projects, in which he intervenes in various ways around social and philosophical issues. Paintings, writings, objects, collages and photographs - his protean work unsettles the viewer. His contemporary Chris Burden (1946-2015) left Boston to perfect his art at the University of Irvine, while studying physics, printmaking and architecture. This jack-of-all-trades produced some remarkable performances in California; in Shoot , performed in Santa Ana in 1971, he was shot in the arm. From 1975 onwards, he turned to installations with scientific and political themes. He collaborated with artist Nancy Rubins, his wife, incorporating sculpture, photography and occasional aircraft parts.
Energy forever
California's creative energy is sustained by the waves of artists who continue to pour in from all over. Concerns are being updated. Indissociable from the gay movement, photographer Catherine Opie, born in 1961, has settled in Los Angeles, where she campaigns for LGBT and queer causes. Her series of portraits set against a neutral colored background, Being and Having, began playing with gender ambiguity in 1990. While documenting marginality, her style is reminiscent of Flemish Renaissance portraits.
Well established on the international scene, the new wave of L.A.-based artists is multiplying experimentation. Ruben Ochoa reworks urban space to offer a glimpse of what lies behind the walls; Matthew Brandt renews experimental photography to question everyday life and the link to reality; Mark Hagen juggles all kinds of techniques in his installations.
Cutting-edge art centers include San Diego's Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and the spectacular The Broad in Downtown L.A.
From mural art to street art
San Francisco is also the cradle of mural art. Mexican painter Diego Rivera stayed here in 1930 with his partner and painter Frida Kahlo. He painted two murals at the Stock Exchange Tower (now The City Club of San Francisco) and at the San Francisco Art Institute. Four years later, his disciples painted the murals at the Coit Tower. A score of local artists, led by Victor Arnautoff and José Moya del Pino, responded to state commissions for major works by the Work Projects Administration (WPA). Recently, the art community protested against the proposed sale of the San Francisco Art Institute's work by Rivera, The making of a fresco showing the building of a city (1931). Estimated at nearly $50 million, its sale was intended to help save the institution from ruin caused by the pandemic and financial mismanagement. Sadly, the institution eventually went bankrupt and closed for good in 2022. But fortunately, a group of wealthy patrons led by Steve Jobs' widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, bought the campus in 2024 with the aim of renovating and reopening it. Rivera's fresco should therefore remain in place and once again be open to the public. Another new development for Rivera is the return in 2024 of his gigantic Pan American Unity mural (almost 23 m long) to the City College campus in a new, dedicated space.
Today, street art flourishes in San Francisco's colorful Mission District. More than 600 murals can be seen on the walls, mainly along Balmy Alley and Clarion Alley.
In Los Angeles, head for theArts District east of Downtown, for a stroll through street art, cool restaurants and hip galleries. The beating heart of this booming district, The Container Yard (or TCY) acts as an incubator for talent from all horizons, in a unique space. Exhibitions, events, meetings, relaxation and culture - everything that makes California so rich can be found here. Not to be missed!
