By Daily Press staff By Daily Press staff By Daily Press staff
The Abbot Kinney Memorial Library will be hosting its annual used book sale on Saturday, Sept. 24.
The event, which starts at 9 a.m. and lasts until 3 p.m., will feature a wide variety of bargain-priced used books, both hardback and paperback.
The library is located at 501 South Venice Blvd. and the book sale will take place in the Jon David Waldrom Community Room.
For more information, call (310) 821-1769. A time for giving Toys “R” Us has partnered with Toys for Tots to collect toys and cash donations for needy children for the upcoming holiday season.
New, unwrapped toys can be dropped off at Toys “R” Us retail stores from Oct. 4 to Dec. 6 and cash donations can be made all season long at Toys “R” Us stores around the country.
Cash donations also can be made online at www.toysfortots.org/home/donate. The toy store will also be donating $1,000,000 worth of toys for needy children to Toys for Tots.
Toys for Tots will use the monetary donations raised to purchase toys to benefit needy children in local communities For more information, call (310) 907-5385. Low and behold: California heritage on display Behold — the California coastline will be on display at a local museum. Titled “Behold,” the artwork display will be presented from Sept. 24 through next February at the California Heritage Museum, 2612 Main St.
The tradition of landscape painting has been shared by American artists. In the early 1800s, during the industrial revolution, a group of landscape painters known as the Hudson River School, focused on reproducing the virgin countryside on canvas. Working “en plein air,” painting outdoors rather than in the studio, they were in awe of the beauty and grandeur of nature and sought to pay homage to what they saw, art history buffs say.
Many aspiring young artists who were schooled abroad in the latter part of the 19th century were introduced to French Impressionism. With the advent of the trans-continental railroad, many of those talented young artists found their way to the shores of California. From the broad beaches of the south to the rocky coves and bays of the north, they began to paint in a more spontaneous manner, seeking to capture more accurately the natural light and atmospheric effects of the California coastline. This period in California painting changed American art in the manner in which artists used color and their adoption of distinct loose brushwork, officials say.
At the end of the 1920s, with the nation enduring the pangs of the great depression, California art made a series of dramatic transformations. A new generation of artists turned to new styles, characterized by a move away from the perceptual towards more conceptual approaches to painting. As much of America’s disposable income vanished, the artist-dealer-patron relationship came to a halt and “plein air” and modernist painters alike joined Works Progress Administration (WPA) programs to find work.
As the economy recovered in the late 1930s, a new California regional style of portraying everyday life, caught on. Subject matter focused less on landscape and more on the genre scene of Californians and their varied and intimate enjoyment of the California coast.
Artists in the show include Franz Bischoff, Louis Betts, William Coulter, Frank Cuprien, Ernest Narjot, Edgar Payne, William Ritschel, Granville Redmond, Arthur Rozaire, Donna Schuster, George Gardner Symons, Marion Kavanaugh Wachtel, William Wendt, Thomas Hunt, August Gay, Seldon Gile, Emil Kosa Jr., Rex Brandt, Phil Dike and Roger Kuntz.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Jean Stern, executive director of the Irvine Museum, will present a slide lecture “California Impressionist Style.” Call the museum at (310) 392 8537 for information on date, time and to make a reservation.
The California Heritage Museum is located in an 1894 historic landmark house. Hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $5 general; $3 students and seniors; children 12 and under free. Parking is free and handicapped facilities are available. On Sundays, the museum hosts a Farmer’s Market in its parking lot. Visitors to the museum can find parking in adjacent quarter metered parking lots.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 10, 2005. Read the original PDF.