Millard Sheets is one of the fathers of California Scene Painting. He was a gifted painter and teacher. He created many large scale mosaics for buildings in Southern California, including Pleasures Along the Beach now gracing the exterior wall of the entrance to the Hilbert Museum. His paintings are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum in New York, the Chicago Art Institute, the National Gallery in Washington D.C.; and the Los Angeles County Museum. The Hilbert Museum had an extensive number of Millard Sheets paintings on exhibit, and I will be writing about them in a coming issue. Millard Sheets created his dream home along Mendocino County's rocky coast near Anchor Bay. He died there in 1989.

The Hilbert Museum had a sizeable number of works by Emigdio Vaszquez, and I will be sharing them in an upcoming newsletter.

Zoot Suits originated in the 1920's, originating with African American comedians such as Pigmeat Markham and Stepin Fetchit. Later, they became stylish in urban ghettos. Cab Calloway called them "totally and truly American." In 1943, a group of Mexican zoot suiters were victims of repeated mob violence. After that, zoot suits became a symbol of Hispanic pride.

Dick Swift was born in Long Beach and studied at the Chouinard Institute and the Art Students League of New York and the Otis Art Institute. He exhibited extensively in the US, Japan and Europe. As a young man in his 20's, Swift visited the jazz clubs along Central Avenue in LA. He captured the crazy exuberance of fevered musicians and frenzied jitterbugging dancers.

Mary Blair became a highly innovative and visionary talent at Disney. Her concept drawings were key in the development as such Disney classics as Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. She worked closely with Disney Studios Director of Animation Effects Joshua Meador to bring her concepts alive in motion. She also designed much of the attraction Its a Small World at Disneyland.

Edgar Payne became one of the foremost plein-air painters in California and the American West. In 1916, the Santa Fe Railroad commissioned him to paint the Southwest. He and his wife Elsie spent four months living and painting in Canyon de Chelly in Northeast Arizona. This small canyon (compared to its neighbor, the Grand Canyon) is one of the oldest continuously inhabited areas of North America. The Anasazi people lived in dwellings carved from these red stone cliffs. Today, the canyon is home to modern Navajo.

Mischa Askenazy was born in Odessa. At the age of four, his family moved to New York. There, he studied at the National Academy of Design. After more study in France and Italy, he moved to California in the mid 1920's. He was influenced greatly by the paintings of Paul Cezanne and is known for his portraits, landscapes, figure studies and still lifes. He often painted Hispanic subjects in the neighborhoods in the hills and ravines north of Los Angeles. He often painted in Chavez Ravine, a location also frequented by LA artists such as Millard Sheets, Phil Dike, Sam Hyde Harris, and Orpha Mae Klinker. In a very emotional and controversial move in the 1950's, the Chavez Ravine Community was removed to make way for Dodger Stadium.

Hardie Gramatky was an American painter, writer, animator, and illustrator. He was one of the true inventors of California Scene painting, skills which helped him become a senior animator at Walt Disney Studios. In a 2006 article in Watercolor Magazine, Andrew Wyethe  named him as one of America's 20 greatest watercolorists.

Dong Kingman was a truly gifted California Style watercolor painter. During WWII, gas masks were widely distributed in California. Kingman was fascinated with the imagery and placed gas masks on figures in his paintings. He even put gas masks on animal like figures walking erect like humans. Kingman was highly successful in New York, San Francisco and Hong Kong. He also did illustrations used in the films 55 Days at Peking, The Sand Pebbles and Flower Drum Song.

Phil Dike was a caring teacher and one of the main innovators of California Style Water Color painting. He studied at the Chouinard Art Institute and the Art Students League in New York. He was a member of the National Academy of Design, the American Watercolor Society and the California Water Color Society. In 1935, he worked at Walt Disney Studios where he taught art and color theory while working on animated films. He worked on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia and The Three Caballeros. After WW II, Dike joined with fellow painter Rex Brandt to form the highly successful Brandt-Dike Summer School of Painting.

Entrance to the Horbor-Corona del Mar is one of the most beautiful coastline lookout points in Southern California. Dike discovered this place as a child and painted it often throughout his illustrious career.

This work filled with figures captures a moment in a very historic place. The Plaza de Los Angeles is adjacent to Olevera Street and across the street from LA's Union Station. In 1781, the city of Los Angeles was founded here. In the 1820's, the Plaza was the heart of the city and was still bustling in the 1930's when Dike created this painting. With careful study, many stories can be found here.

In the 1930's, Barse Miller was an avid sailor. Although he lived inland, he traveled often to Newport Harbor. In this scene, The Balboa Pavilion is pictured in the background. Miller painted this in a regionalist style, capturing the look and fell of Southern California.

Joseph Kleitsch was born in Hungary. He trained in Budapest, Munich and Paris. He came to the US in 1912. He moved to Laguna Beach in 1920, falling in love with the artist's village. Arthur Millier of the Los Angeles Times in 1922 wrote, "Kleitsch was a born colorist; he seemed to play on canvas with the abandon of a gypsy violinist". On November 16, 1931, at the age of forty-nine, Kleitsch died of a heart attack in front of the courthouse in Santa Ana, California. In this scene, he captures the feel of old Laguna Beach when it was still a small town.