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Thursday, June 30, 2011

A Century of Landscapes: Selections from the California Art Club at the California Historical Society, on Exhibit in San Francisco until October 15th

Twisting Mountain 14 x 21 watercolor on paper
Twisting Mountain is one of my favorite interpretations of Mt Diablo. It fits the theme of historical interpretation because I purposely left out the summit building and roads and painted as it appeared to the first settlers in the East Bay.

              
                  California Historical Society
                 678 Mission St San Francisco CA



Here is the write up reprinted with permission from the California Historical Society web site :

From July 14th through October 15th, the California Historical Society will host the California Art Club’s centennial exhibition, A Century of Landscapes: Selections from the California Art Club.
At the dawn of the twentieth century, California became home to a legion of artists who came to paint the state’s awe inspiring natural landscapes “en plein air,” an Impressionistic style in which painters worked outdoors in order to capture the ephemeral moment of natural lighting across a landscape.
The California Art Club was established in 1909, by artists, patrons, and visionaries for the sole purpose of capturing the beauty of California’s landscapes in their paintings.
The California Historical Society is the only Bay Area venue for this exhibition celebrating the one hundred year legacy of the California Art Club.
The juried exhibition of works from current members will be supplemented by historical materials from the California Art Club and pieces of art and other materials on the Club from the rich collections of the California Historical Society.

Here is link to the contemporary paintings in this exhibit:

http://www.californiaartclub.org/a-century-of-landscapes-2/

I am very happy to see there is a nice selection of landscape paintings in watercolor here.
Larry Cannon, Dick Cole, John Deckert,  Carolyn Lord and Robin Purcell(me) are all represented and illustrate my thesis that watercolor is so varied in technique , it allows you to create a distinctive style that is original and immediately recognizable, something I find very satisfying as an artist.

The exhibit is over now  and the painting "Twisting Mountain"  SOLD at the Fairmont Gallery in Sonoma.

4 comments:

Helen Percy Lystra said...

The colors are wonderful. What a joy that must have been for the settlers to see something like that.

Alisha B. Whitman said...

I love your Twisted Mountain. The colors are so vibrant and the variations make it so interesting. I love how you see in shapes and keep them separate, yet still let the watercolor do what watercolor does best!

Nick G. Swift said...

The composition and twisting patterns in the mountain are quite impressive. I'm red-green colorblind, and was struck by how vibrant the colors appear to be in this work. Very clean and intense in the foreground (I'm guessing if I can make them out). Enjoy this one :)

Swift,
www.nickgswift.com

Robin Purcell said...

Helen Alisha and Nick,thank you for your comments, I feel so lucky to live so close to this.