At mid-century, California art was clearly in transition. Throughout World War II, hundreds of artists fled war-torn Europe, and a number of them ended up in California. Many of them brought modern art ideas to post-war art schools in Los Angeles and San Francisco. All of the art schools where they and more conservative teachers were employed geared up to handle the thousands of decommissioned soldiers who were signing up for art classes as a means of collecting money and an education on the GI Bill. Those GI Bill art students combined with the many local-born art students formed a nucleus for what became a very large new California art community.

Around 50 % of the students preferred conservative art approaches that were familiar to them. In fact, prior to WWII most California art would be considered “conservative” representational art. Those artists chose schools that hired teachers who taught more conservative approaches to producing art. The other 50 % wanted to explore ideas of producing modern art. They chose schools focused on abstract art. Cubism was especially popular, but other approaches to producing abstract art were also of great interest as well to a number of young up-and-coming painters.

Throughout this time museums and art centers often chose to split their annual exhibitions 50/50: half “conservative” works and half “modern” works. This exhibition features California art of the mid- 20th Century and has been developed to celebrate how some of the exhibitions of that era might have looked. All of the artists in this exhibition were producing art in California during that era and all of them participated in museum art exhibitions of that time.

Glen Knowles, Curator

Image:

Anders

"North Beach Girls"

c. 1955

Oil on Masonite

Private Collection