Staging California in Early Hollywood

Southern Californian artists were vital to Hollywood’s film industry in the first half of the twentieth century. Trained in the lively brushwork and enchanting atmospheric effects of late Impressionist art, these local painters lent their artistic talents to cinema by fashioning awe-inspiring sets, developing new visual effects, and forging creative relationships with directors. Their contributions helped transport moviegoers to the locations portrayed, from the wildest regions of the United States to faraway countries and fictional places. This exhibition spotlights their achievements in commercial film, connecting these to their independent painting practices, which at times were indistinguishable and, at other times, antagonistic. Though seemingly disparate, the worlds of Hollywood cinema and plein air painting were rooted in the same Californian landscape and thoroughly intertwined.

Drawn primarily from the collection of UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art and organized by museum staff, the exhibition features works by Arthur Beaumont, Lee Blair, Mary Blair, Edward Biberman, Carl Oscar Borg, Conrad Buff, Phil Dike, Maynard Dixon, Robert Florey, George Gibson, Paul Grimm, Edith Head, Clark Hobart, Ralph Hulett, George Hurrell, Hardy Gramatky, William Jekel, Dong Kingman, Emil Kosa Jr., Warren Newcombe, Charles Payzant, Granville Redmond, Arthur Grover Rider, Clifford Silsby, Slavko Vorkapich, and Olaf Wieghorst.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website

Image credit: Paul Grimm, Untitled, after 1932. Oil on canvas, 36 x 46 in. UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art, gift of George E. Moss, Jr. in memory and honor of Mr. Roscoe and Edith Moss