The California Art Club is recognized as a leading force in the
contemporary-traditional fine art movement. One of the oldest,
largest, and most active professional arts organizations in the
world, the Club is dedicated to the advancement and appreciation
of artwork created using time-honored techniques that have nearly
been forgotten.

Founded in 1909 in the studio of Franz A. Bischoff (1864–1929)
along the banks of the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena, the Club’s illustrious
founding members also included Carl Oscar Borg (1879–1947),
Hanson Puthuff (1875–1972), Jack Wilkinson Smith (1873–1949),
and William Wendt (1865–1946), whose wife, Julia Bracken Wendt
(1871–1941), was a celebrated sculptor. Membership in the California
Art Club today is open to artists, scholoars, art students, patrons,
and collectors.

The Annual Gold Medal Exhibition, the organization’s signature event,
pays tribute to its pioneering artists who inspired the California
Impressionist movement. The exhibition has a long history having
no theme—similar to those of nineteenth-century European art
salons—in order to encourage artists to take artistic risks and create
what they consider to be their most important works. As a result,

Gold Medal artists use classical methods to express important
modern messages, ranging from environmental preservation to social
issues and cultural perspectives.

Image:
Peter Adams
"Diana of the Hunt; Forest Lawn"
Oil on panel
40 x 30"
Courtesy of the artist