California Scene Painting, also known as Southern California Regionalism, is a form of American regionalist art depicting landscapes, places, and people of California. It flourished from the 1920s to the 1960s.

History

Early 20th century California artists interested in everyday images and themes from the state's 19th century history provided the foundation for the emergence of the regional genre of California Scene Painting. The term was attributed to Los Angeles art critic Arthur Millier, and it referred to watercolors, oil paintings and mosaics of landscapes and scenes of everyday life, such as mountain and coastal scenery, pastoral agricultural valleys, and dynamic cities and highways. Varying in style and subject, California Scene Painting was influenced by a range of precursor styles, notably Impressionism (particularly

California Impressionism The terms California Impressionism and California Plein-Air Painting describe the large movement of 20th century California artists who worked out of doors (''en plein air''), directly from nature in California, United States. Their work became pop ...

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

, and Realism.

Notable artists

Notable California scene artists included

Emil Kosa Jr. Emil Kosa Jr. (November 28, 1903 – November 4, 1968) was an American artist of Czech origin. He was the art director of 20th Century Pictures's special effects department for more than three decades, winning an Academy Award for Best Visual Ef ...

, Roger Edward Kuntz, Millard Sheets, Milford Zornes, Phil Dike, Rex Brandt, Phil Paradise, Elsie Palmer Payne, George Post,

Elsie Lower Pomeroy Elsie Lower Pomeroy (1882-1971) was an artist most closely associated with the American Scene Painting movement and specifically California Regionalism or California Scene Painting. She was also one of a small group of botanical illustrators wh ...

, Barse Miller, Paul Sample, Dong Kingman,

Anders Aldrin Anders G. Aldrin (1889–1970) was a Swedish born American artist, active from 1926 to 1970. The majority of his work was in painting, watercolors and wood block prints. He emigrated to the United States in 1911. In 1917, he joined the United ...

, and Charles Payzant. One group — including Sheets, Dike, Brandt, Miller, Zornes, and Kosa, Jr. — worked in large-scale watercolors. A 2014 exhibition at the Pasadena Museum of Art included many of the best-known California scene painters.

History

Notable artists

See also

References

Further reading