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Showing posts with label California Art Club. Show all posts
Showing posts with label California Art Club. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Autry Masters of the American West Paintout 2104 - Descanso Gardens

Saturday, October 25th, 2014 marked the 10th outing of the Masters of the American West Paintout and was held for the first time at the beautiful Descanso Gardens in La Cañada-Flintridge.

The Paintout began as a collaboration between the California Art Club and the Autry National Center.  John Geraghty, the primary force behind the Autry's Masters of the American West  worked with CAC Executive Director Elaine Adams to come up with an event which allows top collectors from both the CAC and the Autry to enjoy the day watching and getting to better know these top flight artists.  The Autry has produced the event since the inception while artists participating in the event come from the ranks of the Masters of the American West and top California Art Club artists.  For the past several years, fellow Autry Trustee Calvin Gross and I have served as the Co-Chairs for the event.

John Geraghty and Molly Campbell


About the Organizations


The Autry National Center is host to the annual Masters of the America West, one of the largest and most successful exhibitions and sales of fine western, southwestern and California art in the world.  Every year, collectors from around the country gather together to compete to purchase paintings and sculpture by some of the very top artists of this genre, producing several million dollars in sales in a single evening.  The works of art remain on exhibit for a month or more at the Autry Museum.  The upcoming Masters of the American West will be held beginning January 31, 2015.

For more information see: Masters of the American West.



The California Art Club is one of the oldest and largest professional artists organizations supporting artists who paint and sculpt fine traditional representational art in the tradition of the great California artists of the early 20th century.  Founded in 1909, the organization hosts multiple artists workshops, exhibitions, dinners and other functions every year.  The CAC's top exhibition is its annual Gold Medal Exhibition.  The 104th Annual Gold Medal Exhibition will be held beginning March 29th at the Fisher Museum of Art on the USC campus.

For more information see: California Art Club.

The Paintout

The annual Masters of the American West Paintout has grown from humble beginnings into a highly anticipated annual event. The first Paintouts were held at Malibu Creek State Park where artists and patrons enjoyed the beautiful natural setting and enjoyed box lunches at rustic picnic tables.  Over the years, the Paintout has shifted locations to the Abalone Cove Shoreline Park in Palos Verdes, the scenic Paramount Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains, the incredible Ventura Farms estate (owned by Dole Foods CEO David Murdock) in Thousand Oaks, the lovely oceanside Montage Resort in Laguna Beach.

This year's Paintout was held at the beautiful Descanso Gardens in La Cañada-Flintridge.  Many of the 25 or so artists situated themselves around the Japanese Tea Garden while others spread out to other areas around the 160 acre botanical garden.

Stephen Mirich painting at the Japanese Tea Garden

Michael Situ and Peter Adams painting the colorful orange bridge
Z. S. Liang painting the entrance to the Tea Garden
Michael Obermeyer at wor


Lynn Gertenbach painting at the duck pond

Brittany Weistling painting a rose

Morgan Weistling painting next to Brittany
JoAnn Peralta with CAC Chief Operating Officer Cathy Crowser

Gayle Garner Roski painting ducks at the pond

The grounds had their share of other attractions.  Deer roamed through the forests, ducks floated on the ponds, we came across little waterfalls and large displays of autumn decorations.  All were potential subjects for the artists.







Come noontime, all of the artists and collectors gathered together back at the Van De Kamp Hall where a luncheon was served to the 160 artists and guests.  Many of the artists displayed their finished and partially finished paintings around the edges of the room. Collectors were free to discuss purchase of individual paintings with the artists and several paintings were sold.








The photographs presented here show only a small selection of the artists, guests and paintings that were present at the event.  A full selection of photos are posted on a gallery here.  If you would like to know about next year's Paintout, send me an email and I will be sure to let you know when the invitations come out!

TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/Autry-Paintout-2014

My pledge to you is to professionally handle all of your real estate needs whether it is searching for a new home or property, selling one that you already have or helping you address your real estate needs anywhere in the world. My goal is to make your real estate experience pleasant, productive, focused and hassle free.

I would love to discuss any real estate needs that you may have.  Please give me a call at any time.

Jim Rea, Realtor
Sotheby's International Realty - Pacific Palisades

Monday, November 8, 2010

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 

Monday, October 25, 2010

Paintout at Ventura Farms


Last Saturday, the Autry National Center's Masters of the American West Committee, in association with the California Art Club, hosted their 7th Annual Plein Air Paintout and Luncheon at the incredible Ventura Farms in Thousand Oaks, California.  This was the second time the event was held at Ventura Farms, the Arabian Horse ranch and retreat owned by David Murdock, the Chairman and owner of Dole Foods.

Nearly 40 artists from the California Art Club (http://www.californiaartclub.org) and from the Autry's Masters of the American West Fine Art Exhibition and Sale (http://theautry.org/get-involved/masters-of-the-american-west) spread out across the grounds of Ventura Farms to paint scenes taken from the immaculately groomed estate.

Just one of the lushly landscaped gardens
Conchita O'Kane works on her painting

John Geraghty, Special Advisor to the Masters of the American West and
grandkids chat with exuberant Russian painter Alexey Steele
and Olga Vlasova.


Guests wandered around the gardens, talking with artists, enjoying the estate and chatting with other patrons.  One of the most stunning aspects of the grounds are the huge, sinuous river boulders that Murdock had excavated and shipped from the River Kwai in Thailand.  They dot the entire estate and are a remarkable presence.  Weighing several tons each, some of these stones stand twenty to thirty feet tall and each one has a life if its own.

The boulders along the promenade
Morgan Weistling working with a model

Autry's new CEO Dan Finley and his wife Jennifer meet Ernie and Donna Schroeder

Z. S. Liang paints the Chinese pavillion

The grounds include a large pond that holds several thousand Koi fish.  An oriental bridge connects the grounds to an island where a Japanese pagoda rests.  This scenic setting has been featured in several movies over the years.  Also, a smaller Koi pond is inside of the Chinese Pavillion along with fabulous examples of carved jade art and other Asian masterpieces.

CAC President Peter Adams paints the pagoda scene at the Koi pond


Dan Pinkham painting high above one of the several rose gardens
Smaller Koi pond inside of the Chinese Pavillion
Carved jade panel inside the Chinese Pavillion
Lunch was served in the Conservatory, a giant hothouse filled with hundreds (if not thousands) of orchids and a central area with marble floors ... definitely the nicest greenhouse I have ever seen.

Lunch in the Conservatory

A tiny sample of the orchids in the Conservatory
All in all, it was an amazing afternoon that is hardly describable.  Thanks to David Murdock for his generosity in opening his wonderful estate to all of us.

I posted all of my images from the event online at: http://s563.photobucket.com/albums/ss72/jarea6020/Autry%20Paintout%20at%20Ventura%20Farms%202010/  Enjoy them.

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