George Gardner Symons 1861-1930 |
Sea Coast |
New England Forest |
Born in Chicago, George Symons changed his last name from Simon to avoid anti-Semitism. After attending the Art Institute in Chicago, he and life-long friend and classmate, William Wendt moved to California and built a joint studio in Laguna Beach.
A coast to coast artist, George Symons maintained studios in California, New York and the Berkshires in Massachusetts. His works reside in the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
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Jean Mannheim 1863-1945 |
Sunset Glow |
After having the good sense to desert from the German army, Jean Mannheim studied at the Ecole Delecluse and Academie Colarossi in Paris. He then moved to the US, first setting up a studio in Decatur, Illinois before moving to Pasadena in 1908.
Mannheim built his home on the rim of the Arroyo Seco. He developed a bright style for his landscapes. His works reside in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, the Irvine and the Oakland Museums. |
Gustav Adolph Magnussen 1864-1944 |
Pekingese Dog |
Laguna Canyon Road |
Gustav Adolph Magnussen grew up in Schleswig-Holstein. He studied at the University of Heidelberg.
Magnussen landed in San Francisco in 1900 and in 1902 moved south to Los Angeles. He built his studio and gallery on the Balboa Boardwalk. He created bright impressionist paintings done in his German style. He was a member of the Laguna Art Association. |
Frances Upson Young 1870-1950 |
Inlet |
Half Dome, Yosemite |
Frances Upson was born in Cleveland where she studied at the Cleveland School of Art.
Frances Upson married Robert Young, an attorney. The couple moved to Hollywood where Robert became the city attorney for Hollywood before Hollywood was annexed to LA. Frances continued her art studies with notable California artists Paul Lauritz, and Anna Hills. She became a member of the Laguna Art Association in 1924. After her husband's retirement, the couple moved to Laguna Beach in the early 1930's. |
Florence Young 1872-1974 |
The Edge of the Desert |
Cypress Cove, California Coast |
Florence Young was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa. She studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York. She studied privately with William Merritt Chase and later with Nicolai Fechin. In 1920, she was living in Long Beach. By 1930, she moved to Alhambra where she became associated with Artist Alley artists Sam Hyde Harris and Clyde Forsythe.
She painted natural landscapes throughout California and stunning urban scenes recalling the style of the Ashcan School in New York. Her works reside in the collections of the Orange County Museum and California and Pomona College, California
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Arthur Merton Hazard 1872-1930 |
Lupines on a
California Hillside, 1923 |
Bird and Seal Rocks, California |
After being a successful portrait painter in Boston, Arthur Merton Hazard moved to Los Angeles in 1923 for health reasons. In Hollywood, he painted continued painting portraits of legends like Douglas Fairbanks. But like other artists who came to California, he was drawn to paint California landscapes.
His works reside in the Red Cross Museum in Washington and the Houses of Parliament in Ottawa, Canada. He died at the age of 58 while visiting Paris in 1930.
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Peter Nielsen 1873-1965 |
Still Life |
Peter Nielsen was born in Denmark and came to Chicago in 1887. When he was 30 years old, Nielsen was recruited by Edgar Payne to assist Payne as he created murals for all 11 floors of the Congress Hotel in Chicago. Also recruited for this project were California artists Jack Wilkerson Smith and Conrad Buff. Although it did not happen instantly, Nielsen eventually left Chicago for California.
Nielsen was mostly a self taught artist, but studied briefly at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1925 at the age of 46, he moved to Los Angels where he remained active in the local art scene for the next 40 years. He maintained his home and studio in Eagle Rock just west of Pasadena.
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He became known for his landscapes, still lifes and for taking on huge mural commissions (a skill he acquired from Edgar Payne). He was invited (along with many other notable California Artists) for creating a painting for the famous Gardena H.S. Collection. His works reside in the Oakland Museum, Los Angeles Museum of Art, and a mural in the Fiesta Room of the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. |
Dedrick Brandes Stuber 1878-1954 |
Eucalyptus at Twilight |
The Charm of Old Ships |
Eucalyptus and Farmhouse |
Springtime in the Desert |
Dedrick Brandes Stuber was born in New York in 1878. He attended the Art Students League and established himself as a working artist in New York.
At age 42, he moved to Los Angeles in 1920. For the next twenty years, he painted marine scenes, mountain vistas and is best known for pastoral landscapes of Southern California. He was a plein air painter and preferred rising early to capture the shadows of sunrise when shade predominates.
Stuber died in Los Angeles at the age of 76. He was a member of the Laguna Beach Art Association and the Glendale Art Association. His works reside in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American Art and the Pasadena Art Museum. |
Richard Dey de Ribcowsky 1880-1936 |
Rialto Bridge, Venice, Italy, 1917 |
Sunset and Rolling Waves |
Richard Dey de Ribcowsky was born in Rustchuk, Bulgaria in 1880. He received formal art training in Paris and continued his studies in Florence, Italy. He won his first award in 1902 in Petrograd (St. Petersburg, Russia.)
In 1904, he traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina where he founded the Buenos Aires Academy of Beaux-Arts. A prolific painter, he entered competitions in Montevideo, Uruguay, (1908) , Odessa, Russia (1909), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1909), Moscow, Russia (1910) and Sofia, Bulgaria (1910).
By this time, he had developed a reputation for his maritime and seascapes.
In 1910, Richard moved to New York, but the city did not satisfy his wanderlust. He set out across America, creating sweeping vistas of the Grand Canyon, desert scenes, and ended his trip west with paintings of the California Coast and the Redwood Forests.
Of all the places he had been, he loved Southern California the most. In the early 1920's he settled in Inglewood. He was receiving a good income from lithographs of his earlier paintings. He created a technique he called "Reflex Style" where he showed how light carries and bounces colors off of different objects, blending tones and illuminating them, producing a naturally brilliant palette.
A car accident in 1931 left him wheelchair bound. This limited his ability to travel. He was in New York in 1933. After returning to LA, he lived in the Ambassador Hotel where the Coconut Grove Nightclub was located. De Ribcowsky's paintings were displayed for sale in the public rooms of the Hotel where they were seen and often purchased by Hollywood elite and stars. |
Anna Althea Hills 1882-1930
White Roses 1904
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Wooded Stream and Sheep
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Yellow Daffodils
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Anna Hills trained at the Art Institute of Chicago and at New York's Cooper Union. In 1908, she spent a year in Paris studying at Academie Julian in Paris and with John Noble in England. At age 31, she moved to Laguna Beach. In 1913, she began organizing the Laguna Beach Art Association, serving as its president six terms. Prior to California, her style was dark, but due to her association with other Southern California painters, she developed a much lighter palette. She had solo shows at the Kanst Gallery, the Los Angeles Museum, and the Fern Buford Gallery in Laguna Beach. She was loved by her fellow artists and students. Forty-four years after her death at the age of 48, the Laguna Beach Art Association held a retrospective exhibition in her honor in 1974. Her works reside in the Laguna Beach Art Museum, the Irvine Museum, the Fleisher Museum and the Orange County Museum. |
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Victor Clyde Forsythe 1885-1962 |
Late Afternoon, 1946 |
River Reflection |
Clyde was born in Orange, California, but grew up in Tombstone, AZ where his parents ran a general store next to the OK Corral.
After studying at the Art Students League in New York, Clyde became a successful pioneering newspaper cartoonist
along with his good friend, Jimmy Swinnerton.
During WWI, Clyde created many (now famous) war recruitment posters.
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Forsythe shared a studio with a young artist named Norman Rockwell. Clyde was gregarious and a natural born promoter. Norman was shy and hesitant when it came to putting his best self forward. It was Clyde who encouraged and coaxed young Norman to present his portfolio to the Saturday Evening Post. Later on, Clyde made his home and studio in Alhambra on a street which became known as Artist Alley. One of his neighbors was Sam Hyde Harris, and in the winters, his friend Norman came for regular visits. On one of these visits, Clyde introduced Norman to an Alhambra resident, a school teacher named Mary Barstow who in soon became Norman's second wife. |
Louis Krupp 1888-1978 |
Borrego Springs |
Louis Krupp came to America from his native Bavaria, and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York. He settled in Florida and over his career did over three thousand portraits.
In 1946 at age 58, he moved to the West Coast. He made his home in Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs. Louis was active in the Palm Springs and the Laguna Beach art associations, and taught portrait painting at Palm Springs High School. His painting Borrego Springs shows a masterful hand with a palette knife. |
Paul Lauritz 1889-1975 |
Passing Storm |
17 Mile Drive |
In 1905, 16 year old Paul Lauritz moved with his family from his native Norway to Vancouver. He soon made his way to Portland and then on to Los Angeles. He became known for his portraits, but soon established himself as a painter of landscapes and seascapes.
He taught at the Chouinard School of Art and the Otis Art Institute. Among his students were many of California's most notable artists.
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He served as president of the California Art Club, and was a member of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Commission, the Laguna Beach Art Association, the Royal Society of Art in England, and the Salmagundi Club in New York.
For the most part, Paul Lauritz was a self taught artist who won numerous awards from museums and expositions throughout California. His work is exhibited at Sacramento's Crocker Art Museum, the Irvine Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Diego Museum of Art, and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Oxnard, CA.
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Sam Hyde Harris 1889-1977 |
Carlsbad Backwater |
Eucalyptus and Marsh |
Lakeside |
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At a height of 6' 3" coupled with an energetic and magnetic personality, Sam proved to be a valued member of the Los Angeles Art community. His paintings have an easily recognizable style, eloquent strokes, interesting composition and marvelous color.
Sam came to America from Middlesex, England along with his family, arriving in Los Angeles in 1904 at age 15. While working odd jobs in advertising art, he continued his art education, studying with a list of notables including California painter Hanson Puthuff.
Sam
was successful at commercial art, creating posters for clients like the Southern Pacific, Union Pacific and Sante Fe railroads which today are collector's items. He created the Van deKamp Bakeries logo of a windmill.
He is best known for his graceful paintings of California's eucalyptus trees. He purchased a home in Alhambra, California on a street that became known as Artist's Ally. His neighbors included Frank Tenney Johnson, Jack Wilkinson Smith, Eli Harvey, Clyde Forsythe and (in the winter's) Norman Rockwell escaping Massachusetts winters. Nearby Artist Alley was another Alhambra artist, Florence Young, an artist also in this exhibition. |
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Ruth Manerva Bennett 1899-1960
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Oak Grove |
Born in Momence, Illinois, Ruth Bennett studied art at the Art Students League in New York City before moving to Los Angeles in the 1920's.
In LA, she studied at the Chouinard and Otis Art Institutes with Emily Mocine, Armin Hansen, Karoly Fulop, Vysekal Schroeder, and Millard Sheets. She won many awards in Southern California during the 1920's and '30's. She was an active artist, but for her day job, she taught wood carving at El Monte Union High School and in the Los Angeles public schools. She died on July 21, 1960.
She exhibited with the California Art Club, and was a member of the California Watercolor Society. Her paintings were exhibited in the Oakland Art Gallery in 1932 which today is the Oakland Museum.
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California School, Artist unknown, done prior to 1931 |
Sailboats in San Pedro Harbor |
This marvelous painting draws the viewer into the scene, and strongly suggests quiet and solitude, attuned to its Southern California locale.
A close inspection of the painting shows long confident brush strokes in the dock and the boats. The stretcher on the back has an ink stamped paper label owned by Harry Linder. In his own right, Harry Linder (1886-1931) was an excellent pastel painter. His studio and gallery in Long Beach was a business frequented by many notable Southern California painters. The gilded frame is by Vandeuren Archival Framing in West Hollywood was added recently. |
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In addition to the Southern California Impressionists, two of our gallery's featured artists are also included
Grace Allison Griffith 1885-1955
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Spring Shower,
Valley of the Moon, 1935 |
Early Spring |
Grace Allison Griffith is a valued part of Sonoma County's Heritage.
She was a member of the Royal Watercolor Society, Royal Academy of Art in London.
She had a studio in Hawaii in 1919-1921, and was dubbed by an Hawaii art critic, "the Wizard of Watercolor."
She studied with Bohemian Club member, Lorenzo Latimer, and exhibited widely throughout California, England and Scotland, and Hawaii. |
From her studios in Sebastopol and Berkeley, Grace sold her paintings through prestigious galleries of her day, the Claremont Hotel Art Galleries in Berkeley, Gumps in San Francisco, and the Kanst Galleries in Hollywood Hills above Los Angeles.
She was the daughter of Sebastopol fruit rancher Nathaniel Griffith who brought the Gravenstein apple to Sebastopol. As a young artist, Alice created paintings of hybrid plants for Santa Rosa's famed horticulturist, Luther Burbank.
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Joshua Meador 1911-1965 |
Genesis |
Sierra Wilds |
As Walt Disney Studio's Director of Special Animated Effects, Josh Meador participated in most of the famed Disney classics. Josh was grateful to Walt Disney for giving him an opportunity during the Great Depression. Josh found his "day job" at Disney artistically challenging and rewarding. But beyond the studio, Josh always thought of himself as a landscape painter, first and foremost.
In the late 1940's and early 1950's, he frequently visited Bodega Bay and created numerous canvases of Sonoma County scenes. |