California Art
Art made in California, from Yosemite photography and Arts and Crafts houses to postwar painting, perceptual art, murals and design.
No works indexed yet · 10 related artists
No open-access works for California Art are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.
About
California's art began with its Native peoples, whose rock paintings and baskets long predate statehood. After the Gold Rush, photographers such as Carleton Watkins hauled mammoth glass plates into Yosemite in the 1860s, and the landscape stayed central: Ansel Adams and the Group f/64 photographers championed sharp, unmanipulated prints in the 1930s. In Pasadena, the architects Greene and Greene built timber houses in the Arts and Crafts spirit.
After the Second World War the state's weight grew. Charles and Ray Eames made moulded plywood furniture and their own steel-framed house. Richard Diebenkorn's Ocean Park paintings, begun in 1967, translated coastal light into soft grids. Robert Irwin and James Turrell made light and perception their material, and Ed Ruscha turned gas stations and freeway signs into deadpan images. In the 1970s Chicano muralists covered East Los Angeles walls, and David Hockney recorded swimming pools in bright acrylic.
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