A healthy climate and breathtaking views — mountains, canyons, forests, and the sun-drenched coastline — made the Monterey Peninsula one of the West Coast’s earliest artist colonies, one that retains a century-old tradition of attracting the best Impressionist artists, especially those who paint en plein air, or outdoors.
However, this dreamy location is hardly in a time warp. In the last 50 years, Modern and contemporary art have taken their place, albeit in distinct niches of artists and galleries. Still dominated by Impressionist canvases, the Monterey Peninsula’s art scene offers collectors a variety of styles.
The entire destination owes much of its success to San Francisco Bohemian Jules Tavernier, who virtually jump-started the artist colony in war-torn Monterey in 1875, when he came on commission to sketch the mission at Carmel. The war took a hard toll on Monterey. Under U.S. rule in 1854, California moved its capital from Monterey to Sacramento. More devastating, the peninsula became virtually inaccessible when Monterey and Salinas Valley Railroad went broke in 1874.
During Tavernier’s three-year stay, he encouraged artist friends to visit and became revered for his influence on the fledgling artist colony and economy.
The epic 1906 earthquake and fire that devastated the San Francisco Bay Area produced a massive influx of artists to Carmel, Pacific Grove, Monterey, and Pebble Beach. They were loosely associated with the Barbizon School, a romantic and realistic style founded by Théodore Rousseau and named for the landscapes conceived on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleu southeast of Paris in the 1840s.
“[The American artists] saw the style as bright, colorful, and upbeat in feeling, appropriate for interpreting the state’s attitude, color and sunlight,” observes Nancy Moure, author of the definitive California Art: 450 Years of Painting & Other Media.
Eventually, Southern Pacific Railroad reopened access to Monterey and the work of local artists attracted tourists in huge numbers. They would luxuriate at Hotel Del Monte, which opened the area’s first commercial gallery in 1907.
By 1913, the colony was in its heyday, its landscapists peaking in popularity and gaining national acclaim at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, a celebration of the Panama Canal and the largest art show ever held in California.
Geography plays a vital role in Impressionist painting. “The early painters working in Giverny and Grez had neither the coast nor the mountains to explore and pictorially exploit as did the Californians,” says William H. Gerdts, professor of art history at the Graduate School of the City University of New York and author of numerous books on American and California Impressionism. “The earlier painters in the Northeast usually chose intimate landscapes — often their own home environment — rather than the expansive landscapes. Several of the major East Coast Impressionists, such as John Twachtman and Willard Metcalf, gained special distinction for their snow-filled winter landscapes. And then there is a difference in the light of Northern France, the light of New England, and the light of [coastal] California.”
Two important U.S. artists — William Merritt Chase and Childe Hassam — spent time in the area. Chase taught at the Carmel Arts & Crafts Club’s summer school and painted the uncharacteristically (for him) tonalist Monterey, California (1914), held by the Oakland Museum of California. One of his students was Euphemia Charlton Fortune, who had studied in Edinburgh, Scotland, and in London. After the San Francisco earthquake, she worked in New York before establishing a studio in Monterey and gained notoriety for incorporating contemporary themes on her canvases.
Indeed, Gerdts says, “Another interesting feature of the [Monterey] colony was the quantity of women artists — proportionally more, certainly, than at Laguna Beach, as well as some of the other major Impressionist centers back East.” Gerdts specifically points out Evelyn McCormick and Mary Brady — “the first California woman to have worked in Giverny” — as pioneers in the Monterey colony.
Guy Rose, a U.S. expatriate returning at the onset of World War I who studied in Paris before coming to the Golden State, helped influence a “feminization” of the style, Moure suggests, pointing to his work during his 1904-1912 residence in Giverny, France. “These exhibit a brushstroke similar in shape to Monet’s ‘fishhook’ and a perspective compatible with the Giverny region’s moist atmosphere and delicate colors. Rose continues this style when he turns to painting California’s landscapes after 1914, but updates the soft tones with brighter colors as seen in the dryer atmosphere of the state.”
Other pioneers to look for include Charles Rollo Peters, Francis McComas, Arthur Matthews, Edgar Payne, and William Ritschel. “Of all the regional [Impressionism] schools, California was richest in quality artists and works,” Gerdts says. “And so the appeal of Impressionism was transferred to California artists, with the added appeal among California collectors of patronizing their own distinct heritage.”
Carmel’s standout dealers of early California Impressionist paintings include William A. Karges Fine Art, George Stern Fine Arts, James J. Reiser Fine Art, and Westbrook Galleries.
For information on galleries, see our Gallery Guide.
In With the New — Modern and contemporary artists find niches.
Woe was the purist, the champion of Impressionism — mortified, cringing with denial in the 1930s, when their heroes not only began to die, but were soon history, as Modern art — already abuzz in San Francisco — became the Monterey Peninsula’s first art-historical obstacle.
Some embraced the challenge — including former rancher Clayton S. Price, who boldly painted ranch scenes in angular, abstract fashion. Another was August Gay, the first painter to join the Society of Six, the Bay Area’s earliest group of Modern artists. By 1945, Modern art had gained a foothold, having been introduced at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. Among nearly 12,000 works displayed in San Francisco were paintings of French abstraction — including Cubism and Futurism — that gave Impressionism the freshness of yesterday’s newspaper.
Modernists had their way with the Monterey’s land and sea. One example is Raimonds Staprans’ oil on canvas Sailboat (1964) at Winfield Gallery.
Today, collectors can still find rare works on paper, including Pablo Picasso linocuts printed in three colors in the 1950s and gems by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Oliver, Elliott and Sebastian Fine Art).
Contemporary Impressionism still rules in the local galleries (Trajan Gallery, Classic Art Galleries, Phillips Gallery). The artist-owned Carmel Art Association has mounted shows for local artists for 80 years. Additionally, commercial spaces show everything from Pop (George Rodrigue at Rodrigue Studio) to the fantastical (Lynn Lupetti Gallery) to celebrity (Tony Curtis at Gallerie Amsterdam).
— S.B.
