American Scene Painting, California, 1930s and 1940s
by Ruth Westphal and Janet Blake Dominik
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Edited by Ruth Westphal and Janet Blake Dominik 240 pages 146 color illustrations, hardcover Buy this book: Price: $49.00
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About This Book
Out of the nation’s
worst economic downturn, The Great Depression, came a new
American resolve and a reversal of foreign influence. One
aspect of this trend was a uniquely American artistic output.
The commonplace activities and environments of Americans at
work and at play became the inspiration for and the subject
matter of artwork produced across the nation. The movement
was referred to as “American Scene” or “Regionalism”
and took the form of murals, oil paintings, and watercolors.
This
book concentrates on California’s contribution to that
era of American art. Both in Northern and Southern California
the work that gained the majority of critical acclaim and
drew national attention was overwhelmingly in the medium of
watercolor, which is therefor the emphasis here.
Twenty-five
of the leading painters of the period are profiled in richly
illustrated individual sections, and four essays by the nation’s
leading authorities on this genre explore the phenomenon and
place it in a national context. Included are full color reproductions
of paintings from museums throughout the united States, among
which are: the Hood Museum of Art, the Laguna Art Museum,
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern
Art, the National Academy of Design, The Oakland Museum, the
San Diego Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern
Art, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum
of American Art.
Both beautiful
and absorbing, this book is also a comprehensive, scholarly
reference source, valuable for the neophyte as well as the
sophisticated callector, curator, or art historian.
Courtesy of Westphal
Publishing,© 1991.
California Watercolor