APPENDIX:
A CHRONOLOGY OF INSTITUTIONS, EVENTS, AND INDIVIDUALS
Derrick R. Cartwright
The preceding essays survey the complex conditions of modernism in California during the first half of the twentieth century. Each author has brought different criteria to the task of mapping California's distinctive cultural terrain and, accordingly, each has identified his or her own critical vantage points. Such a large grouping of perspectives is bound to be diverse and, as such, the assembled narratives resist efforts to keep facts in strict chronological order. Still, the usefulness of a chronology for a volume like this one is not simply that it submits an abundance of historical information about artistic practice in California to the organizing device of a calendar, but also that it may offer a separate, independent space for further comparison of seemingly disparate activities. The possibility of making new connections between entries makes this chronological effort worthwhile.
This chronology traces the founding of art institutions, the establishment of new markets for modern art, and the uninterrupted migration of artists to the state. From 1900 to 1950 the state's population rose from approximately 1.5 to 10.5 million, and cultural developments reflect this phenomenal growth. While many entries reflect indisputably modernist tendencies, others plainly do not. What should be emphasized, therefore, is the sheer number of cultural issues—that is, the events, institutions, and individuals that shaped artistic life in California throughout this period. Although it is hoped that the art-historical significance of the entries will be clear, the chronology is not comprehensive. It cannot acknowledge every person who contributed to the development of a modernist culture in California any more than it can indicate the real impact of every institution or exhibition. It does, however, sketch broadly the characteristics that enable us to interpret this modernism as something unique.
A chronology mounts a narrative that should not be confused with a complete or disinterested column of events. Decisions about what to include (and exclude) inevitably serve to construct (or, equally, obscure) a particular version of history. In making selections here, in addition to underscoring themes presented by the essays, I have
drawn upon many existing chronologies,[1] as well as important period studies of California art.[2] Finally, a survey of the documents collected for more than twenty years now by the West Coast Regional Center of the Archives of American Art constituted another invaluable source for the chronicle presented below.
Note: Entries for the various institutions listed below reflect their founding dates unless otherwise specified.
1900 | • California Camera Club begins its publication of Camera Craft • Stanton Macdonald-Wright moves to Los Angeles with parents |
1901 | • College of Fine Arts at Garvanza, a division of the University of Southern California, founded by William L. Judson (destroyed by fire, 1910) • First San Francisco Photo Salon |
1902 | • Art Department at the University of California at Berkeley • California Society of Artists, San Francisco • First Secessional Art Exhibition, San Francisco |
1903 | • Carmel-by-the-Sea established by real estate developers intent on creating an artists' colony • Chiura Obata moves to San Francisco from Japan |
1904 | • San Diego Art Association • Julia Morgan becomes first registered woman architect in the state (opens office in Sar Francisco in 1905) |
1905 | • Los Angeles Arts and Crafts Society • Carmel Arts and Crafts Society • Daniel H. Burnham submits plan for City and County of San Francisco to the city's board of supervisors • Arthur B. Davies visits Northern California |
1906 | • First motion picture studio in Los Angeles founded by George Van Guysling and Otis M Grove • Los Anegle Times begins publishing weekly Art Review column, written by Anton: Anderson • Painters' Club of Los Angeles • Los Angeles Art Institute |
• Art Students League of Los Angeles founded by Hanson Duvall Puthuff • Fine Arts League, Los Angeles • Edward Weston moves to California • Arthur F. Mathews and John Zeile begin to publish Philopolis , a journal devoted to San Francisco arts and city planning | |
1907 | • California School of Arts and Crafts founded by Frederick H. Meyer in Berkeley (later moved to Oakland; became California College of Arts and Crafts in 1936) • California Arts begins publication in Los Angeles • The Southwest Museum, Los Angeles • Del Monte Art Gallery, Monterey • Greene & Greene, David B. Gamble House, Pasadena (completed 1908) • Mark Hopkins Institute of Art (rebuilt after 1906 earthquake) reopens as the San Francisco Institute of Art |
1908 | • Temple of Art, Los Angeles • Childe Hassam visits Northern California (returns 1914-15; visits Southern California in 1927) |
1909 | • California Art Club, Los Angeles (previously Painters' Club) • Cannon Art School, Los Angeles • State Normal School of Manual Arts, Santa Barbara • Women Painters of California, formed in Southern California • The Arroyo Guild of Fellow Craftsmen • Rex Slinkard begins teaching at Art Students League in Los Angeles • Nelbert Chouinard moves to Los Angeles, where she joins faculty of Throop Polytechnic Institute and later Otis Art Institute, prior to opening her own art school in 1921 • Bernard Maybeck's First Church of Christ Scientist, Berkeley (completed 1911) |
1910 | • San Diego Art Students' League • San Diego Academy of Art founded by Maurice Braun • Lucien Labaudt emigrates from France to San Francisco |
1911 | • Pacific Arts and Crafts News begins publication • California Society of Etchers, San Francisco • Los Angeles Sketch Club • Painter and muralist Frank van Sloun moves to San Francisco after visiting in 1907-8; brings Ashcan painting to region; joins art faculty, University of California at Berkeley, in 1926 • Municipal Arts Commission of Los Angeles |
1912 | • Occidental College Art Department, Los Angeles • Stickney Memorial Art School, Pasadena, opens under direction of Raffaello Mataboddi and Jean Mannheim • San Diego Society of Arts and Crafts • Southwestern Academy of Fine Arts • Helen Lundeberg moves to Pasadena with family, at age 4 |
1913 | • Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art (Los Angeles County Museum of Art opens in 1965 as separate facility in present Hancock Park location) holds its first art exhibition in its new building in Exposition Park • Frederick C. Torrey purchases Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No . 2 from the Armory Show for his Berkeley home • Alexander Calder moves to San Francisco with family, at age 15, when his father, Alexander Stirling Calder, is appointed Chief of Sculpture at Panama-Pacific International Exposition (stays until 1919) • Henrietta Shore moves to Los Angeles; stays until 1920 (returns in 1923; establishes a painting studio in San Francisco in 1925; moves permanently to Carmel around 1930) |
1914 | • Los Angeles Camera Pictorialists • Printmakers of Los Angeles • School of Illustration and Painting, Los Angeles, begun by William V. Cahill and J. H. Rich • Vickery, Atkins & Torrey, San Francisco print and antiques gallery, exhibits Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 • Beatrice Krombach begins publication of Western Art in Los Angeles • Robert Henri visits San Diego at the invitation of former student Alice Klauber; assists with planning of Modern American Art exhibition at the Panama California International Exposition • Muralist Joseph Jacinto Mora moves to San Francisco from Uruguay • Irving Gill begins Walter Luther Dodge House, Los Angeles (completed 1916) • Henry Cowell, at age 16, gives first performance in San Francisco; hailed as a pioneer in experimental music |
1915 | • Beniamino Bufano first visits San Francisco (settles in 1921) • Sculptor Sargent Johnson moves to San Francisco • The San Diego Art Guild • Brush and Pencil Club of Los Angeles • Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco • Panama California International Exposition, San Diego, at Balboa Park • William Preston Harrison moves to Los Angeles from Chicago; becomes important art patron and donor to Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art • Henrietta Shore moves to Los Angeles (stays until 1920; returns to Carmel in 1928) |
• San Francisco Society of Artists merges with San Francisco Art Association • Oakland Art Association • Oakland Art Gallery • Modern Art Society, Los Angeles • Arnold Genthe publishes influential book of pictorialist photographs, Pictures of Old Chinatown • Sculptor Donal Hord moves to San Diego for health reasons at age 14; during the 1930s, he becomes one of Southern California's most renowned public artists • California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco | |
1917 | • Art Teachers Association of California • Bivouac Art Club, Los Angeles • Frank Lloyd Wright begins work on the first of twenty-five structures he would build in California: Hollyhock House, Hollywood, for Aline Barnsdall (completed 1921) • Imogen Cunningham and Roi Partridge move to San Francisco • George Bellows visits and paints the California coastline • Jackson Pollock moves to Chico |
1918 | • Laguna Beach Art Association • Otis Art Institute (affiliated with the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art) established by Harrison Gray Otis, founder of Los Angeles Times • Sunset Boulevard Art School founded by C. Lillian Hounsel • MacDowell Club of Allied Arts, Los Angeles • Helena Dunlap and Henrietta Shore are given two-woman show at Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art • Dorothea Lange establishes a photographic studio in San Francisco • Johan Hagemeyer moves to San Francisco |
1919 | • Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery founded in San Marino; endowed with $10.5 million by its namesake (building opens in 192.8) • Santa Cruz Art League (formerly Jolly Daubers) • La Jolla Art Association • California Progressive Group's only exhibition, at Lafayette Tea Room, Los Angeles • Rex Slinkard memorial exhibition at Los Angeles Museum of Art • Willard Huntington Wright begins writing weekly column on art in San Francisco Bulletin • Philip (Goldstein) Guston moves with his family to Los Angeles; attends Manual Arts High School, 1927-28, where he befriends Jackson Pollock |
1920 | • Hollywood Art Association • San Diego Friends of Art |
• Los Angeles Print Group • Santa Barbara School of the Arts founded by Ferdnand Lungren • Three Arts Club, Los Angeles • Exhibition of Modern American Painters (same artists as the 1916 Forum Exhibition in New York) opens in Los Angeles (February) and San Francisco (March) • R. M. Schindler arrives in Southern California; establishes his own office in 1922 | |
1921 | • San Francisco Museum of Art • Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles (to 1971) • San Diego Academy of Fine Arts • West Coast Arts, Inc. (Women's Art Club), Laguna Beach • Earl Stendahl forms Stendahl Art Galleries in the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles • Sculptors' Guild of Southern California • California Watercolor Society, Los Angeles • Palo Alto Art Club (now Pacific Art League) • Printmakers Society of California, Los Angeles • Simon (Sabato) Rodia begins work on Watts Towers (to 1954) • Yun Gee emigrates from China to San Francisco (stays until 1927) |
1922 | • Community Arts Association of Santa Barbara • Glendale Art Association • Potboiler Art Center, Los Angeles • Arthur Wesley Dow Foundation begins publishing Dark and Light , a journal devoted to modern aesthetics • Peter Krasnow moves to Glendale (formerly Tropico, site of an art colony) at invitation of Edward Weston • Rudolph M. Schindler begins designing Lovell Beach House, Newport Beach (completed 1925) |
1923 | • Painters' and Sculptors' Club of Los Angeles • Berkeley League of Fine Arts • Long Beach Art Association • Group of Independent Artists exhibition, including Charles Austin, Ben Berlin, Nick Brigante, Boris Deutsch, Peter Krasnow, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Max Reno, Morgan Russell, and Edouard Vysekal • Frank Lloyd Wright builds his first "textile block"/usonian brick house in Pasadena, La Miniatura • First Society of Six exhibition at Oakland Art Gallery • Free Lance Art Club of Los Angeles • Biltmore Salon (also known as Biltmore Galeria Real) in downtown Los Angeles • For Art's Sake begins publication in Los Angeles |
• Knud Merrild moves to Los Angeles • Wait Disney moves to Los Angeles • Sadakichi Hartmann moves to Los Angeles • Japanese Camera Pictorialists of California, Los Angeles | |
1924 | • Painters of the West, Los Angeles • Santa Barbara Art Club • Los Angeles Public Library Building begins construction; designed by Bertram G. Goodhue, with murals by Albert Herter and Dean Cornwell • International Artists' Club of Los Angeles • California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco • Pasadena Art Institute • Arts and Crafts Society of Southern California • Goldsworthy-Clark School of Allied Arts, Los Angeles |
1925 | • San Francisco Society of Women Artists • Pan-American Exhibition, Los Angeles • Pasadena Society of Artists • Commercial Artists' Club of Los Angeles • Galerie Beaux Arts, San Francisco (first commercial gallery devoted exclusively to modern art on West Coast), founded by Beatrice Judd Ryan • San Diego Fine Arts Society • Modern Art Workers, Southern California • Oxnard Art Club • Artland Club, Los Angeles; published journal Artland (1926-27) • Dalzell-Hatfield Gallery, Los Angeles • Jacob Zeitlin moves to Los Angeles; in 1927, opens At the Sign of the Grasshopper bookstore, which became a center of bohemian cultural activity • Robert Henri visits Los Angeles • Mills College Art Gallery |
1926 | • First Blue Four exhibition at Oakland Art Gallery, organized by Galka Scheyer • Stone International Gallery (modern American art), Monrovia • Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego opens in Balboa Park (later renamed San Diego Museum of Art) • Hollywood Art Center School • Los Angeles Art League • Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design, San Francisco • Otis Oldfield and Yun Gee open the Modern Gallery in San Francisco (later becomes the Art Center) as a vanguard exhibition space; Gee founds Chinese Revolutionary Artists' Club in the city at about the same time |
• Arthur Millier begins writing a regular art column for Los Angeles Times • Walter and Louise Arensberg, influential patrons of modern art, move to Los Angeles • Krishnamurti makes Ojai his home; spiritual leader attracts numerous artists to region • Architect Richard Neutra moves to Los Angeles | |
1927 | • First successful television transmission accomplished by Philo T. Farnsworth, in San Francisco • Synchromism , exhibition of works by Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russell, at Los Angeles County Museum (February) and Oakland Art Gallery (June) • Carmel Art Association • San Diego Society of Arts and Crafts • Marin Society of Artists • Argus begins publication in San Francisco • Lorser Feitelson moves to Los Angeles • Beatrice Wood moves to Los Angeles at Arensbergs' invitation • Belle Baranceanu moves to Los Angeles (stays until 1928; returns to San Diego in 1933) •Poet Kenneth Rexroth moves to San Francisco |
1928 | • Pasadena Society of Women Painters and Sculptors • Scripps College Art Department, Claremont • Los Angeles Print Group • Younger Painters of Los Angeles • Santa Monica Bay Art Association • Academy of Modern Art, Hollywood • Pacific Southwest Exposition, Long Beach • East West Gallery of Fine Arts, San Francisco, mounts exhibition Ecole de Paris , which includes work by Picasso, Georges Braque, Georges Rouault, and André Derain • Students at Manual Arts High School, Los Angeles, including Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, and Reuben Kadish, publish a satirical broadside, entitled Journal of Liberty , which results in their expulsion from the school |
1929 | • Younger Painters exhibition, Los Angeles • Long Beach Businessmen's Sketch Club • Associated Artists of San Diego (changed name to Contemporary Artists of San Diego in same year) • Art Students' League of San Pedro • Women Painters of the West, Los Angeles • Southern California Art Dealers' Association • Oakland Art Gallery opens exhibition European Modernists , including work by Emil Nolde, Carl Hofer, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Pechstein, Oskar Kokoschka, and Lyonel Feininger |
• Charles Erskine Scott Wood moves to Saratoga with his wife, Sara Bard Field • Alfredo Ramos Martinez moves to Los Angeles; paints murals in Apple Valley (1931), Beverly Hills (1933), Santa Barbara (1934), Los Angeles (1935), San Diego (1937), and Claremont (1945) | |
1930 | • Harmon Foundation of New York sponsors exhibition of work by contemporary black artists at Oakland Art Gallery • Japanese Camera Club of San Francisco • Giorgio de Chirico exhibition at Stendahl Art Galleries, Los Angeles • Hans Hofmann invited by Worth Ryder (one of his former students) to teach in Art Department, University of California at Berkeley • José Clemente Orozco arrives in Southern California, paints Prometheus at Pomona College dining hall • Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo arrive in San Francisco; large exhibition of Rivera's work at California Palace of the Legion of Honor that travels to Dalzell-Hatfield Gallery in Los Angeles • Sergei Eisenstein arrives at Paramount Studios • Lucien Labaudt hosts Henri Matisse in San Francisco • Mabel Dodge Luhan, author and important patron of American avant-garde artists, visits Edward Weston in Carmel • Art Center School, Los Angeles, founded by Edward A. ("Tink") Adams |
1931 | • William Preston Harrison gives his art collection to Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art • Rivera completes two San Francisco murals: one for the stairwell of the Stock Exchange Lunch Club (now the City Club) and one at the California School of Fine Arts • Hans Hofmann has one-man show at California Palace of the Legion of Honor; teaches at Chouinard Art Institute • Philip Guston and Reuben Kadish paint portable mural cycle American Negro for Los Angeles chapter of John Reed Club (mural, inspired by Scotsboro Boys incident, later destroyed in a police raid) • Morgan Russell moves to Hollywood and teaches at Chouinard Art Institute (to 1932) •Agnes Pelton settles in Cathedral City (near Palm Springs) |
1932 | • San Diego Moderns • Mortensen School of Photography, Laguna Beach (to 1955) • Group f.64 formed in Oakland (to 1938). Original members include Willard Van Dyke, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Sonya Noskowiak, Henry Swift, John Paul Edwards; first exhibition of their modernist photography at M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; others invited to exhibit with the group include Preston Holder, Consuelo Kanaga, Alma Lavenson, Brett Weston |
• David Alfaro Siqueiros teaches course on mural painting at Chouinard Art Institute, gives lecture to John Reed Club of Los Angeles entitled "The Vehicles of Dialectic-Subversive Painting," and completes mural Tropical America at Plaza Art Center in Los Angeles | |
1933 | • Foundation of Western Art, Los Angeles • Los Angeles Art Association (originally the Museum Patrons Association) • Public Works of Art Project (PWAP; to 1934) • Centaur Gallery (specializing in surrealist works) opened by Stanley Rose in Hollywood • Sculptor Alexander Archipenko teaches at Mills College • John Gutmann moves to San Francisco from Germany |
1934 | • Section of Fine Arts of the Treasury Department (to 1943) • Coit Tower murals painted in San Francisco at total cost of $24,300 • Public Works of Art Project Exhibition at Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art attracts record-breaking number of visitors • Joan Miró exhibition at East West Gallery of Fine Arts in San Francisco • Post-Surrealism movement originates in Southern California; Lorser Feitelson, Lucien Labaudt, Harold Lehman, Helen Lundeberg, Knud Merrild, and Etienne Ret show their "New Classicist" works at the Centaur Gallery • Barrows Lane Gallery opens at University of California at Berkeley (among first campus exhibition spaces devoted to modern art) • Humboldt Art Club • Los Surenos Center (gallery and art center), San Diego • Grace L. McCann Morley named director of San Francisco Museum of Art • Composer Arnold Schoenberg arrives in Los Angeles to teach (first at University of Southern California, later at University of California at Los Angeles) • John Cage returns to his birthplace, Los Angeles, to study with Schoenberg and later teaches at Mills College • Painter Hilaire Hiler moves to San Francisco (publishes Why Abstract? in 1945) • Alfred Frankenstein begins reviewing exhibitions in San Francisco |
1935 | • Works Progress Administration (WPA; to 1943) • Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP; to 1938) • California-Pacific International Exhibition, San Diego • San Francisco Museum of Art moves into new home in Civic Center • Hollywood Gallery of Modern Art opens • Pan-Pacific Auditorium Building, Los Angeles (Walter Wurdeman and Welton Becket architects) • Max Ernst exhibits in San Francisco and Hollywood (at Howard Putzel's galleries) • Stanton Macdonald-Wright completes multipanel mural Motion Picture Industry for Sante Monica Public Library |
1936 | • Ansel Adams has one-man show of photographs at Alfred Stieglitz's An American Place gallery, New York • Yves Tanguy exhibits his surrealist paintings at San Francisco Museum of Art • Lyonel Feininger teaches at Mills College (and again in 1937) • Marcel Duchamp visits San Francisco and Los Angeles • Filmmaker Oskar Fischinger moves to Hollywood to work for Paramount |
1937 | • California Art Research Project (part of WPA) sponsors art-historical writing on the region • Los Angeles Negro Art Foundation • Spanish Village Art Center, San Diego • California Graduate School of Design, Pasadena • Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism exhibit at San Francisco Museum of Art • Robert Motherwell graduates from Stanford University • Ansel Adams moves to Yosemite • Hans Burkhardt moves to Los Angeles • Aldous Huxley moves to Hollywood • André Malraux visits Los Angeles • Thomas Hart Benton visits Los Angeles on assignment from Life magazine |
1938 | • Rico Lebrun moves to Santa Barbara • Luis Buñuel works on films in Hollywood |
1939 | • Golden Gate International Exposition, Treasure Island • Composer Paul Hindemith plays with Los Angeles Philharmonic • John Cage organizes a percussion orchestra in San Francisco (to 1941) • Hilaire Hiler and Sargent Johnson paint murals at San Francisco Aquatic Park building (now Maritime Museum) • Frank Perl opens West Coast branch of Perl's Gallery on Sunset Boulevard • Igor Stravinsky conducts concert of his music in Los Angeles (moves to L.A. in 1940; stays until 1949) • Carmel Institute of Art • Society for Sanity in Art, San Francisco (formerly Society of Western Artists); this conservative, fundamentally antimodernist group of artists continues until 1947 |
1940 | • Man Ray moves to Southern California (remains until 1951), where he meets his wife, Juliet Browner • Darius Milhaud joins Music Department at Mills College (to 1947 full-time; to 1971 part-time) • László Moholy-Nagy teaches at Mills College with other former Bauhaus faculty members •Anton Refregier receives a large Treasury Section commission ($26,000) to paint Rincon Annex Post Office murals in San Francisco |
• William Gaw becomes chair of Mills College Art Department • Diego Rivera paints mural at Golden Gate International Exposition as part of the Art in Action Program | |
1941 | • Santa Barbara Museum of Art • La Jolla Art Center opens to the public in the home of Ellen Browning Scripps, designed by Irving Gill (renamed La Jolla Museum of Art in 1964) • California Arts and Architecture begins publication (to 1962) • Man Ray exhibits at Frank Perl's Gallery in Los Angeles, and at M. H. de Young Memorial Museum • Bertolt Brecht moves to Los Angeles (to 1947) • Thomas Mann moves to Pacific Palisades (remains in California to 1952) • Theodor Adorno moves to Los Angeles • Clyfford Still moves to Bay Area from Washington state • David Park returns to San Francisco from Boston, begins teaching at California School of Fine Arts • Arshile Gorky spends summer in San Francisco, exhibits his surrealist paintings at San Francisco Museum of Art • Fernand Léger teaches at Mills College, exhibits his work at Mills and at San Francisco Museum of Art • Max Ernst and Peggy Guggenheim visit Los Angeles in search of a gallery space • Julian Levy temporarily leases a gallery space on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, where he exhibits Duchamp's Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even , as well as works by Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst • Edward Hopper visits Bay Area |
1942 | • Dorothea Lange photographs interned Japanese Americans • International Art Gallery opens in Los Angeles (to 1947) • Sawdust and Spangles exhibition, organized by Douglas MacAgy, at San Francisco Museum of Art • Thirty-one Women show at San Francisco Museum of Art (traveled from Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery, New York) • Clay Spohn exhibition Fantastic War Machines and Guerragraphs at San Francisco Museum of Art • Salvador Dalí exhibition at California Palace of the Legion of Honor • Stanton Macdonald-Wright begins teaching at University of California at Los Angeles (to 1955) • Henry Miller moves to Los Angeles (to Big Sur in 1943) |
1943 | • Man Ray exhibition at Santa Barbara Museum of Art • Clyfford Still has first solo exhibition at San Francisco Museum of Art (then at Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1944) • Edmund Teske moves to Hollywood |
1944 | • Circle magazine begins publication in Berkeley • Grace McCann Morley and Sidney Janis organize exhibition Abstract and Surrealist Art in the United States , first major survey of contemporary art by European refugees • Man Ray exhibits at Pasadena Art Institute • Salvador Dalí works in Hollywood on dream sequence for Hitchcock's Spellbound (remains, intermittently, until 1948); attempts short animated film for Disney Studios (Destino , unfinished) |
1945 | • Duchamp and Villon exhibition at California School of Fine Arts • Jepson Art Institute founded, Los Angeles • Douglas MacAgy leaves San Francisco Museum of Art to become director of California School of Fine Arts; Jermayne MacAgy becomes assistant director (in charge of contemporary art exhibitions) at California Palace of the Legion of Honor • Man Ray and Salvador Dalí lecture at California School of Fine Arts • Jackson Pollock has his first West Coast solo exhibition at San Francisco Museum of Art |
1946 | • Mark Rothko visits San Francisco; teaches summers at California School of Fine Arts, 1947 and 1949; has exhibition at Santa Barbara Museum of Art • Photography Department at California School of Fine Arts formed with Ansel Adams as chairman; Minor White invited to teach •Max Ernst marries Dorothea Tanning, Man Ray marries Juliet Browner in double ceremony in Beverly Hills • John McLaughlin moves to Dana Point • Frank Stauffacher begins experimental Art in Cinema series in San Francisco • Thomas Hart Benton visits Walt Disney in Los Angeles to work on (unrealized) film about Davy Crockett • Festival of Modern Poetry in San Francisco |
1947 | • Modern Institute of Art, Beverly Hills, founded by Vincent Price and Sam Jaffe • Associated American Artists opens branch in Beverly Hills • Bertolt Brecht-Charles Laughton production of Brecht's Galileo at Coronet Theater in Hollywood • Richard Diebenkorn joins faculty at California School of Fine Arts • Rico Lebrun and Eugene Berman teach at Jepson Art Institute in Los Angeles • Gordon Onslow-Ford begins painting in San Francisco, moves to Inverness (has first show at San Francisco Museum of Art in 1948) |
1948 | • Edward Weston takes his last photographs at Point Lobos • William Copley opens gallery in Beverly Hills, presents first West Coast exhibition of surrealist works by Joseph Cornell • Robert McChesney and Hassel Smith illustrate The Communist Manifesto in Pictures , published in San Francisco |
1949 | • "Western Round Table on Modern Art" at San Francisco Museum of Art (April 8-11), symposium with participants Gregory Bateson, Kenneth Burke, George Boas, Marcel Duchamp, Alfred Frankenstein, Robert Goldwater, Darius Milhaud, Andrew Ritchie, Mark Tobey, and Frank Lloyd Wright • Metart Gallery, an artists' cooperative, founded by California School of Fine Arts students under guidance of Clyfford Still • Max Ernst exhibition at San Francisco Museum of Art • David Park returns to painting figuratively after more than a decade of abstraction; reportedly takes all his abstract work to Berkeley dump |
1950 | • Max Beckmann teaches at Mills College • Ad Reinhardt teaches at California School of Fine Arts • Wolfgang Paalen settles in Mill Valley; Dynaton exhibition (with Gordon Onslow-Ford and Lee Mullican) at San Francisco Museum of Art, 1951 • Dylan Thomas visits San Francisco and Los Angeles • Clyfford Still moves to New York City |