Dennis Hare, The Cove (Monterey) [detail], 1982. Watercolor on paper, 22 x 30 inches. Mark and Jan Hilbert Collection
The stunning vistas, lifestyles and industries that existed along the 840 miles of California coastline from the mid-1800s to the present day will form the core of “In the Land of Sunshine: Imaging the California Coast Culture,” at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, opening on September 25.
The PMCA exhibition will present distinct epochs and cultures experienced by centuries of California artists as distilled through their artistic visions.
The oils, acrylics and watercolors that will be on exhibit represent the diversity of California’s artistic style – and the lives of the surfers, sailors, sport fishermen and residents who have settled in the beaches, harbors, cities and ranches that dot the coast.
“The show is primarily paintings — paintings that go all the way back to just before California officially became a state up to now,” Gordon T. McClelland, curator and California art historian, tells the San Marino Tribune. “It focuses on connecting the art with the social history of the coastline and the cultures that developed, like the surf culture.”
McLelland borrowed the exhibit’s name from The Land of Sunshine, a Los Angeles periodical published from 1894 through 1923 that portrayed a potent and alluring illustration of the Pacific Coast. He pays tribute to the publication and one of its editors and chief writers, Charles Lummis – a man who once documented his trek by foot from Cincinnati to Los Angeles in a Los Angeles newspaper to become its first city editor.
“This guy was a real pioneer,” McClelland says in the San Marino Tribune story. “He was one of the real promoters of California through his magazine.”
McClelland interviewed many of the artists whose work will be displayed at the exhibition, including artist John Severson, who was born and grew up in Pasadena before moving to San Clemente when he was a teen. Severson is famous for starting Surfer magazine in 1960.
“When he was attending Long Beach State College for his master of fine arts, he created the first series of paintings relating to the California surf culture (1956),” McClelland relates. “Two of the paintings that were in that show will be in this show. He started Surfer magazine, which is the biggest surfer magazine that there is.”
Severson also made many surfing movies, such as “Surf,” “Surf Safari” and “Surf Fever.”
With a broad focus on beach culture, the paintings trace the formal and historical developments occurring within the state. Moving from early representational views of an idealized West to Duncan Gleason’s traditional fundamentals of beauty and Alson S. Clark’s impressionistic scenes of the shoreline, the exhibition segues to Phil Dike’s playful abstractions and Roger Kuntz’s captivating oscillation from representational to abstract.
The exhibition closes with contemporary work, including the vibrantly-expressive watercolors of Keith Crown and the psychedelic surrealism of Rick Griffin.
Curated by accomplished California historian, writer, and curator Gordon McClelland, the exhibition examines artists’ visual responses to the ever-changing look and mood of the Pacific Coast’s communities.
“In the Land of Sunshine: Imaging the California Coast Culture” is organized by the Pasadena Museum of California Art and is supported by the PMCA Board of Directors, PMCA Ambassador Circle, Jan and Mark Hilbert, Diane and Van Simmons, and the Historical Collections Council of California Art.
The exhibit runs up to February 19, 2017.
Pasadena Museum of California Art, 490 E Union St, Pasadena, (626) 568-3665 or visit pmcaonline.org.
