Go West, Young Man

My wife and I just got back from two weeks in California, visiting our daughters.  As always, Roberta and I were struck by the beauty of the California landscape.  It brought back a question I have occasionally pondered: why bother to paint landscapes in California?  I mean, a Californian can simply look out his or her window and see soaring mountains, dramatic shorelines, and wildflowers everywhere.  How can an artist hope to compete with all that?

Yet artists have been trying for well over a century, and places such as Sausalito, Carmel, Laguna Beach, La Jolla, and many more have become famous as artists colonies.  The first artists to achieve real note in the 20^th century were the California Impressionists – Guy Rose, John Marshall Gamble, Edgar Payne, William Wendt, and many more – several of whom had studied in France, particularly at Giverny, where Monet had his famous garden.

Impressionism became extremely popular in California and persisted there as a style long after its reputation had faded elsewhere.  Indeed, California Impressionism has been described as “the Indian Summer of American Impressionism.”

The reaction, when it came, came hard.  By the mid-20^th Century, California Impressionists were dismissed by art historians who deigned to notice them, particularly on the East Coast, as illustrators whose sweet images belonged on chocolate boxes, not in museums among “serious” modern artists.  An indication of how low their reputations had fallen was to be seen in the mid-1970’s when the Los Angeles County Museum of Art deaccessioned several California Impressionist masterpieces from its collection.

Yet Impressionism has always remained very popular with the general public, and by the 1980’s a resurgence in collecting was taking place, led by the late Joan Irvine Smith, who put together a significant collection which is now part of the Institute and Museum of California Art at the University of California at Irvine.  With collectors’ interest increasing, prices shot up.  Had LACMA waited a decade to deaccession its California Impressionist paintings, I suspect it would have realized at least twice as much in proceeds.

California Impressionism is back.  The Rose painting illustrated above brought well over half a million dollars at auction last fall.  But to return to my original question – why bother to paint the California landscape?  Because it is there, it is beautiful, and artists have always been attracted to beauty.  Impressionism and the California landscape seem a natural fit, but the landscape continues to inspire more recent artists, even abstract ones, as can be seen in the lovely Ocean Park series of Richard Diebenkorn.

Diebenkorn’s painting sold this past May for $27,265,500.  Go west, young man, there’s gold in them thar hills.  And if you’ve got a Guy Rose, a Richard Diebenkorn, or anything else that needs appraising, call me.