Author Description

This volume is the definitive study of California's distinctive style of Impressionism. In recent years, the richly colored, exuberantly painted canvases by artists such as Franz Bischoff, Alson Clark, Joseph Raphael, Guy Rose, and William Wendt have attracted an expanding circle of admirers all across the country. In addition to the work of these established West Coast masters, many less-known California Impressionists are presented here, including John Frost, Evelyn McCormick, Bruce Nelson, and others whose work has not yet been widely discovered. In his far-ranging introductory essay, Dr. Gerdts explores the context of California Impressionism, surveying the movement's sources abroad, the most influential exhibitions in America, and the critical responses to the art and the artists. He introduces the work of an almost entirely forgotten foursome - Helena Dunlap, Detlef Sammann, Ernest Browning Smith, and Jack Gage Stark - who were the first local painters to be identified as Impressionists in Los Angeles and who contributed an important but long-overlooked moment in the city's cultural history. Will South supplies an enlightening chronological narrative of the California Impressionists, starting with their often-ignored roots in the Hudson River school and other American realist art. Dr. South also provides detailed artists' biographies and an extensive bibliography.