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California Scene Paintings from 1930 to 1960 – Pasadena Museum of California Art

Emil Kosa Jr., Near Modesto, 1940.

Emil Kosa Jr., Near Modesto, 1940.
Oil on canvas, 22 x 28 inches.
Mark and Janet Hilbert Collection.

California Scene Paintings from 1930 to 1960 The Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) presents ‘California Scene Paintings from 1930 to 1960’, on view at the museum from March 10, 2013 to July 28, 2013.]]>

Source: Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA)

Part of the larger Regionalist artmovement of the 1930s–1960s era, California Scene Painting—a term first used by Los Angeles Times art critic ArthurMillier—describes representational art that captured scenes of everyday life in California. Through the New Deal Reliefprograms, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) assisted struggling artists by providing them with wages to createartworks for government buildings and public places intended to uplift the nation’s spirits amidst the Great Depression.”California Scene Paintings from 1930 to 1960″ documents much of this period in California history through worksthat depict local city and rural scenes, particularly in and around Los Angeles and San Francisco, which were rapidlyexpanding during that time.

Characterized by a sense of humanity, the works in the exhibition typically include people or representations of manmade creations. The California Scene artists related what they saw around them: people going about their everydaylives, factories, a growing car culture, ranches and agrarian communities. Despite a shifting interest toward abstract andnon-objective art during the 1950s, practitioners of California Scene Painting continued to create artworks documentingdevelopments in California history, such as the building of freeways and the formation of California Beach Culture.

Curated by Gordon T. McClelland, California Scene Paintings from 1930 to 1960 features close to 75 artworks, includingoil paintings, watercolors, drawings and prints created in the decades when this was California’s most celebrated type ofart. Some of the works in this exhibition were included in 1930s and 1940s exhibitions of Regionalist, American Scene,and WPA art in major museums across America. Works by key artists are featured in the exhibition, including Phil Dike,Emil Kosa Jr., Phil Paradise, Millard Sheets, Paul Sample, Ben Messick, Rex Brandt, and Dong Kingman. A large formatbook, titled California Scene Paintings, accompanies the exhibition and visually documents artworks from this periodand connects them to California’s history.

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California Scene Paintings from 1930 to 1960 - Pasadena Museum of California Art