ALFA News
California Art History
California’s Plein-Air Heritage by Jean Stern in Art of the West Magazine, 2001
California’s artistic heritage isa a comparatively young one. The state was not created until 1850, and it was not until the 1890s that California began to experience a surge of …
Continue Reading »
Still Life Painting in California – A Continuous Transformation By Elaine Adams, California Art Club Newsletter, February/March 2004
Still life, contrary to its name, is a form of artistic expression that constantly evolves. Objects change through time, as they vary in style and purpose or even become obsolete. …
Continue Reading »
Plein Air Painting – Where Did We Go Wrong? by Jean Stern, California Art Club Newsletter, Spring 2008
The early 1980s saw the institutionalization of California art painted from the 1890s to about the early 1930s. This period has come to be called the “California Impressionist” or sometimes …
Continue Reading »
Sunshine, Trains and Hollywood Bring Artists to Southern California by Elaine Adams, California Art Club Newsletter, Summer 2011
El Pueblo de la Reina de los Ángeles, The Town of the Queen of the Angels, was founded by the Spanish colonists in 1781 and was the second pueblo created …
Continue Reading »
Pioneers of Artists’ Alley (Victor Clyde Forsythe, Frank Tenney Johnson, Jack Wilkinson Smith, Eli Harvey, Norman Rockwell) by Elaine Adams, California Art Club Newsletter, Summer 2007
At the start of the twentieth century, California attracted an eclectic array of creative and philosophical thinkers who were lured out west in search of the spirit of adventure that …
Continue Reading »
Plein Air Painting in Laguna Beach – An Enduring Landscape Legacy by Jean Stern and Molly Siple, American Artist Magazine, 2010
As early as 1886, artists began to flock to Laguna Beach. a small coastal community about 5o miles south of Los Angeles. The attraction, from the artists point of view, …
Continue Reading »
Memoirs of the California Art Club, 1993-2006, by Peter Adams, California Art Club Newsletter, 2006
When I was asked to become the president of the California Art Club in 1992 I had no way of knowing that I would serve in that position for at …
Continue Reading »
California Art Club Looks to the Past for a Future Home – The Desiderio Army Base by Elaine Adams, California Art Club Newsletter, Summer 2007
Creative minds and social mavericks find inspiration in their environment and often migrate to warmer climates and picturesque locations to stimulate the mind and soothe the soul. During southern California’s …
Continue Reading »
How the San Gabriel Valley Inspired California Impressionism and Lured Artists from Across the Nation (Parts I, II, and III) by Elaine Adams, California Art Club Newsletter, Summer/Fall 2016
The development of an outstanding artist requires a process that can be compared to that of nurturing a delicate seedling to full maturity and potential. Cultivation, environment, and faithful caring …
Continue Reading »