Early California Impressionists: The Ronald E. Walker Collection
MORAGA -- Like the swallows returning to Capistrano or the Monarch butterflies to Pacific Grove, historic California landscape art will make an annualreappearance this summer at the Hearst Art Gallery of Saint Mary's College in Moraga. In fact, views of Mission San Juan Capistrano and Pacific Grove are included in the exhibition "Early California Impressionists: The Ronald E. Walker Collection," which opens Saturday, June 28 and continues through Sunday, September 14.
California Impressionism, although related to French Impressionism, developed several decades later, and probably had more to do with the state's spectacular natural beauty, vast areas of open space, and rich natural resources than any deliberate effort by the artists to copy the style of Monet or Renoir.
Because of the popularity and influence of the poetic and melancholy Tonalists Arthur and Lucia Mathews, Gottardo Piazzoni and William Keith, in his later paintings, and perhaps without the sunny optimism and spectacular climate of their south coast counterparts, the Bay Area did not become a major center of the new Impressionism. However, a thriving artists' colony was developing further down the coast on the Monterey Peninsula, especially after the exodus of artists from San Francisco following the 1906 earthquake and fire.
In 1915, San Francisco hosted the Panama-Pacific International Exposition to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. The fair's most popular venue was a painting and sculpture exhibition of more than 10,000 artworks. Along with a retrospective display of the works of William Keith, the paintings of the new California Impressionists drew huge crowds and served notice to the world that California was becoming a significant center of art.
In addition to spectacular Monterey seascapes by Albert DeRome, Paul Lauritz, Carl Sammons, and other painters, the Walker Collection provides a rare opportunity for Bay Area audiences to see exceptional works by Southern California plein air (outdoor) painters including Maurice Braun, Franz Bischoff, Edgar Payne, Donna Schuster and William Wendt. Many are associated with the important Laguna Beach art colony, where Hawaii collector Ronald Walker formerly lived. Significant examples of High Sierra landscapes by Hanson Puthuff, Marion Wachtel and Christian von Schneidau and desert views by Sam Hyde Harris and Carl Sammons round out the show geographically.
Art historian Susan Landauer will offer a slide lecture on California Impressionism on Thursday, Sept. 11, at 7:30 p.m., in the Soda Activity Center. Landauer, author of several books on west coast art history, including the 1996 California Impressionists, has recently been appointed to teach art history at Saint Mary's College. Call (925) 631-4379 for reservations.
