The Sketchers, John Singer Sargent, 1914
o/c 22 x 28, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Beginning with scenes from the time of the Revolutionary War and proceeding through to America’s rise in the early twentieth century, the paintings tell the stories of a dynamic and growing nation. The exhibit centers on works by John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, George Caleb Bingham, William Sidney Mount, Richard Caton Woodville, Eastman Johnson, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, and George Bellows, but lesser known artists are included as well, showing a wide variety of styles and stories.

American Stories was organized by the

Metropolitan Museum of Art and is supported by an endowment from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. The exhibit is arranged in five chronological groups and includes an additional group devoted to stories of California; Inventing American Stories 1765-1830, Stories for the Public, 1930-1860, Stories of War and Reconciliation, 1860-1877, Cosmopolitan and Candid Stories, 1877–1900, Stories of the City 1900–1915, and California Stories.

In the wake of the 1906 quake and fire, Californians busied themselves with rebuilding. As demolition and reconstruction commenced, some were reassessing the Golden State's standing in the art world. With many patrons and artists having left the city, a major new gallery was opened in the Del Monte Hotel in Monterey.

The same folly that drags Americans over to Europe for sight seeing before they have learned to know their own land develops in them that spirit of discontent which expresses itself in the belief that nothing at home is as beautiful, as resourceful or as interesting as in old Europe. But now let us give thanks. At last Americans are coming to a realizing sense of the worth of what is their own.

Until a few years ago the same spirit of discontent was rife among our artists. America had "no atmosphere." To paint, one must necessarily go to Europe to the Parisian Latin quarters or to the meadows of Brittany. Intelligent artists no longer believe such a fallacy. To the

center of the best that western art can produce, and even In Its beginning promises great results.

To name all the artists whose work hangs there would be a long story, for the name of the clever painter is legion. The fact that the canvas has been accepted proves its worth.

A picture of the typical west -- of the desert, with its travelers plodding through the colorless sage brush, under a brilliant cloud decked sky, claims instant attention. Maynard Dixon is the artist and he has surpassed all previous efforts in this latest work.

Although too young to have yet attained national recognition, Californians already appreciate that Dixon has painted the western atmosphere with the brush of a master. Remington has given us the plains Indians, in all the picturesqueness of their warfare, but Dixon portrays the Indian of the sleepy southwest—the great limitless wastes of the southern deserts, and the brilliant colored cliffs of the Arizona and Mexican land. The atmosphere of all is the clear, brilliant rarity of a new country -- nothing blurred, nothing dim; the bold, clear outlines of the big west. Dixon's best work portrays great distances, a land so vast that the people, the moving life, are mere incidents. His are the pictures of atmosphere, not of things.

From a (Pullman) Car Window
On my first trip across the American continent I dreaded the weary hours that were to carry us through the southwest, with its deserts and sage brush and unpeopled miles. But I had drunk of the joy of knowing and loving Maynard Dixon's work and the hours on the desert became a joy. Like a moving kaleidoscope -- one great picture after another had for its frame the Pullman window casing and Mayard Dixon was the painter. He has interpreted and translated for us the western land, with Its dry hills of brown and gold, its oceans of sand waste and its brilliant, clear skies of pink and blue.

The desert land is no longer a waste, but a sea of soft, gorgeous coloring; a rest to the tired eye -- weary of the trite scenes of the regulation world. And this artist of the west has helped us to the realization.

Xavier Martinez shows a painting of the Piedmont hills that is glorious. When Mr. Martinez returned from Paris a few years ago he painted like a student of the French school; the hazy mist of Parisian life characterized all his work. Even then this work was notably "clever." But now he has been in the west and has worked long enough by himself to have attained a style all his own; a touch that no one can imitate.

Martinez and Dixon may be classed together in that they have enriched the art world by their representations of western life in its many unknown phases. Martinez has given us all attributes of Mexican life, the low lying, arched dwelling of adobe; the patios of the houses or peons, gorgeously decked in their gay, colored serapes.

Hanging in the Monterey gallery is the most striking work that Charles Rollo Peters has ever done. The San Franciscan stands before these recent canvases in a trance, spellbound, and perhaps hot tears, In memory of what once was, will blur the gaze. For there, in the moonlight of a summer night, are the ruins of the city's past glory -- Nob hill. Grace church is a pile of bricks, a tower, and a row of paneless windows. The ruin stands there, mute and sorrowful, and the moonlight shines down upon the now roofless sanctuary.

The great, scowling marble lions that lounged at the portal of the Crocker mansion during the years of prosperity have had their noses rudely smudged by the fire's chisel. Peters has painted them in all their grotesque ugliness, as they still try to scowl at the moonlight wanderers or at the refugee who pitched his tent on the crest of Nob Hill.

Several other canvases of similar scenes will place the name of Charles Rollo Peters on the artists' book of fame. For his works are classics. The same daring coloring of previous moonlight pictures characterize the San Francisco ruins. They alone are worth taking a long trip to see.

The Painter of the Sierras
William Keith has not as large a showing of his work as the enthusiast would like. What Joaquin Miller is among writers, Keith is among artists, “the Poet of the Sierras." Every picture - he makes is a painted poem, a bit of nature, singing a song of joy or of sorrow, and drawing us away from things material or prosaic, into the depths of the forest. The lights and shadows of life — of nature — Keith knows and paints. His pictures seem invariably to symbolize the antitheses of life; the hidden and mysterious parts of the forest express our doubts; the ray of light (a silver moonbeam or a streak of glorious sunshine) reflects the beauty and coolness of this secluded corner and calls aloud that life is worth living. Without great light and deep shadow there could be no Keith paintings. All America appreciates this man's work; California can no longer claim him as her own, for his work adorns the homes of the east as often as it does those of the west.

The grandfather; of California landscape painters is H. R. Bloomer. During the ‘70’s this artist was already well known in Paris. His pictures are interesting in that they have a style all their own. And they show the interpretation of an art school older than the one in vogue today.

A field of yellow poppies, a hillside of purple coloring, the buoyancy of a California springtime, with its soft mild air; and we have a J. M. Gamble picture. Mr. Gamble objects to being known only as a painter of poppy fields, but the layman who loves his work insists on having it so. His other pictures are good, but the glory of the tender springtime, with its yellow green hills and the freshness of newly blown blossoms in great patches of brilliancy has been painted by Gamble as by no other artist.

Eugene Neuhaus shows us work at Del Monte indicating a man who has found himself. A little over a year ago brilliant splashes of the impressionist’s coloring marked his pictures. These more recent paintings are far more pleasing. They have individuality without affectation and are a great credit to this man newly adopted by the West.

Some marine views by Joseph Greenbaum mark a stride in the development of an artist that has seldom been seen in the history of art. From the smooth, clear portrait work of a year ago the artist has jumped into a strong, vigorous treatment by means of laying on his pigment almost in lumps. And the result is a most glorious shimmering water scene that shows the touch of a great painter. Greenbaum is forging ahead with the rest of the army of big men.

The Evening Calm
And Will Sparks! Who can paint a twilight as this clever young fellow? His real forte is to show us the repose of a closing day with all the capricious coloring made on water by setting sun or approaching darkness. The touch of the German school is in his work, although nearly all his pictures are of local scenes.

Perhaps the youngest man who has any work in the gallery is Maurice del Mue. This fact, however, is not evident in his painting, for each one is a gem. One hesitates to call Del Mue an impressionist, yet his work approaches that quality. He sees no garish colorings in nature -- just the soft, subdued tones that please the eye and to which, one returns again and again. One picture of a weather beaten gnarled old oak is especially good and promises a brilliant future for the painter.

The cypress country about Monterey, with its gray fogs and soft lights, is the Mecca for most of the western painters. Charles Dickman has not escaped the enchanter's wand, for he has portrayed a group of cypress trees that vie well with any of his previous work. We know the artist as a great portrait painter more than by any other work. Normandy landscape by Dickman was owned by the Bohemian Club before the fire. The members have regarded the loss of this picture as so great that the artist has recently been requested to reproduce it.

The work of Arthur Mathews stands somewhat apart from the others, for we know him as a great mural decorator whom Californians are proud to claim as their own. The painting by this man now hanging in the Monterey gallery is also a clump of local cypress. It shows us the stroke and style characteristic of his mural work.

To stop here in our enumeration of fine pictures and clever artists is difficult. There are many more: Latimer's charming bits of wooded country, Cadenasso's foggy eucalyptus of tapestry coloring that makes one sigh for the open country. C. P. Neilson's water color work of old Mexico in its warmth of sunshine, or Elmer Wachtel's southern California landscapes.

The women whose pictures hang in the Del Monte art gallery have done unusual work. Bertha Stringer Lee sees the water front of city life and the sand dunes of Monterey county with all the appreciation of a real artist. Predictions are idle, but to say that Mrs. Lee will rank among the best artists in the country if she continues to make the same strides in her work that she has of late is a certainty rather than a dream of the future.

Isabel Hunter, Evelyn McCormao, Annie Frances Briggs and Sophia Brannan have pictured the gray days of the Monterey region in a delightful style. Tumbled down shacks, picturesque in their gray moss coating; the hoary pines of the seashore, or the breaking waves of the ever changing, moody Pacific have been painted with great skill. These clever women have found at home subjects galore and "atmosphere" to boot. Go to Europe if you wish, for your technical training but come home to paint, where you know and love the land, the people and the climate.

Lucia K. Mathews has some small canvases that do her credit. Most of her landscape pictures are small but exceptionally good.

Mary Curtis Richardson needs no introduction. Her portrait work is so well known that Americans call her theirs before Californians realize she is their own. A charming study of a picturesque child, with its great mild eyed collie dog, will attract your attention. The child and animal lover stops twice to look at Mrs. Richardson's only picture in the gallery. We wish there were more, for everything that this great woman paints is so full of feeling and soul that one thrills with pleasure to see her work. Mary Curtis Richardson is unquestionably the greatest woman painter on this coast.

Olga Ackerman's portrait work is characterized by the same grace of composition that has given her an enviable reputation both in this country and abroad.

And so the list grows. As many more remain unsung; go and see for yourself. California has "atmosphere" artists and art patrons. Del Monte is the center of the western art world where the art lovers can enjoy the best this coast produces. That which has heretofore remained hidden in shops of artists' attic studios is now gathered together in this new gallery at Monterey.

among the emerging impressionists. He traveled to Algeria, Spain and Italy to study the masters and paint. But even in his newly found fame as one of the primary artists of the impressionist movement, he was experimenting with innovative changes to his style. And without rejecting his impressionist roots, he invented a style which he himself described as classical and decorative.

There has not been an exhibit of Renoir's later works. This exhibit seeks to explore these lesser known works, and seeks to understand where Renoir sought to direct his artistic energies, even as he fought off arthritis and the other pains associated old age.

The Phippen Museum is most excited about their new life-sized Frederick Remington sculpture adorning their entrance on Hwy 89. The Bronco Buster, originally done by Frederick Remington in 1895, was recently dedicated. The new entrance is part of the first phase of expansion. Next year, the museum will begin construction on 10,000 additional square feet, doubling the current size of the museum.

NEW! in San Francisco's Presidio
The Walt Disney Family Museum

See a new film showing in their Theater
"Christmas with Walt Disney"

Produced & Directed by Don Hahn
of the Lion King & Beauty and the Beast
with reminiscing narration
by Walt's eldest daughter, Diane Disney Miller

Click and Read a review in Variety
click for tickets