California Art Club

I just received the latest copy of the California Art Club's newsletter with a wonderful cover article about Franz A. Bischoff by Jean Stern, California art expert extraordinaire and Executive Director of the Irvine Museum.  The scholarship of the articles in the CAC newsletter are always outstanding, and Jean's writing is always excellent as well, but this article is particularly notable for a couple of reasons. First, Bischoff was one of the founders of the California Art Club back in 1909 along with fellow artists William Wendt, Hanson D. Puthoff, Carl Oscar Borg and Jack Wilkinson Smith and this article speaks to many of the early activities of the CAC.  Also notable is the fact that Bischoff will be the subject of a new exhibition at the Pasadena Museum of California art (home of the California Art Club's annual Gold Medal Exhibition) entitled "Gardens and Grandeur: Porcelains and Paintings by Franz A. Bischoff" scheduled to open in December of this year.

If you love California art and its rich history, you should know about the California Art Club.  As previously mentioned, it was founded in 1909 by some of the most famous and well established artists of the day.  It was a successor organization to the Painters' Club of Los Angeles  and was formed, among other reasons to allow women artists as members who were excluded from the Painters' Club membership.  Today, the CAC has grown into one of the largest and most highly respected professional artists associations in the country.  Its membership includes professional and non-professional artists along with a large community of collectors, gallery and museum staff, educators, historians and others who love and support California representational fine art.

The CAC hosts a number of exhibitions throughout the year, but its most famous is the Gold Medal Exhibition, held annually at the Pasadena Museum of California Art on Union Street in Pasadena.  The CAC will be hosting its 100th anniversary of the exhibition from April 3rd through the 24th in 2011.  At the same time, Rizzoli International will be releasing their publication of a major historical retrospective book about the California Art Club.  It ought to be something to behold.  In addition to the exhibitions held by the CAC, they also host artists' workshops, critique sessions, lectures, dinners, artists' studio visits and paintouts at locations around the state of California.  If you love California art, I recommend you show your support by joining the Califoria Art Club.

I mentioned the quarterly newsletter published by the CAC.  This is a wonderful color publication filled with scholarly articles about the history of California art along with articles and news regarding current members of the club and about exhibitions around the country.  Elaine Adams, Excutive Director of the CAC is the driving force behind the newsletter (and everything else the CAC does) and she always does an outstanding job on the publication. I am including a copy of the front page of the newsletter in this post to give you a taste of the quality of their work.  If you like it, join the club and they will send it to you regularly!

CAC Newsletter
Click for larger view

For more information:

California Art Club
75 South Grand Avenue
Pasadena, CA  91105
(626) 583-9009
website: http://www.californiaartclub.org

That is it for this post and as always, if I can be of any assistance to you or any of your friends, family or colleagues with any of your real estate needs (residential, commercial or otherwise) or if I can help find a real estate professional for you to work with in your local community, please let me know.  It would be my pleasure to help.

Jim Rea
Keller Willliams Palisades