Los Olivos - The Wildling Art Museum is taking advantage of its new larger space to showcase its expanding collection of the art of America’s wilderness. From January 13 to March 21, forty-six works of art ranging from large oil paintings to small works on paper, will be on display in the new gallery at 2928 San Marcos Avenue in Los Olivos.
The earliest work is also the first to be acquired by the Museum back in 2000, a large oil painting by John Fery (1859-1934) dated 1912. It depicts a famous spot on the Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park, which is renowned for its distinctive obelisk-shaped rock and its turbulent water, very challenging for fly fishermen. It was painted on commission for the Great Northern Railway Company to help it promote railroad trips to the national parks in the West.
Another large canvas, given to the Museum by the Schaeffer Foundation in 2001, depicts the entire eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada as if it could be seen from Death Valley. This painting, entitled “From the Lowest to the Highest Point in the United States,” was created in 1918 by Henry J. Breuer (1860-1932), an artist who had established a studio in Santa Barbara in 1906.
On the other end of the scale, are a series of small linoleum-block prints that were made by the young Everett Ruess between 1930 and 1934 when he mysteriously disappeared in Escalante Canyon at the tender age of 20. The Wildling Art Museum owns one original, entitled “Sentinels of the Wild,” printed by Ruess himself, and twenty-three others that were printed posthumously from blocks discovered by his brother Waldo and reconstituted in 1985. These simple designs in black and white are reminiscent of the Art Nouveau and the Craftsmen Style movements of the early decades of the 20th century.
The Museum also owns exquisite etchings by Carl Oscar Borg (1979-1947) and George Elbert Burr (1859-1939), as well as some remarkable viscosity prints by Robert A. Cale (1940-1990), a Connecticut based artist who studied with Stanley Hayter in Paris in 1969 and returned to the United States to teach and create prints, using the Japanese direct printing method called Gyotaku. The color lithograph by Montana-based artist, Russell Chatham, “Storm Across the Prairie” is also a tour de force.
Photographs, panoramic and narrow-focused, round out the collection with astounding images of the Florida everglades (Clyde Butcher), the pictographs of central Utah (Diane G. Orr), the prairies (Macduff Everton), and the frozen terrain of the Rockies (Ines E. Roberts) and Antarctica (Roger Craton).
Retiring Executive Director, Penny Knowles, has curated the exhibition, which includes a single sculpture, a bronze Florida panther by E.L. Engle, purchased from last year’s “Endangered Species” competition. The Museum hopes to better publicize the permanent collection in the future by posting information and images online.
A reception for Museum members and their guests is Sunday, January 10, 3:00-5:00 p.m. A free talk by Knowles scheduled at 2:00 p.m. is open to the public. For more information, contact the Museum at 688-1082 or consult the Museum’s website:
www.wildlingmuseum.org.
The Wildling Art Museum is located at 2928 San Marcos Avenue in Los Olivos (one block from the flagpole and right next to the Corner House Coffee). Public hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free, though a donation of $3.00 per adult is requested of visitors who are not already members.
Who: Wildling Art Museum
What: Exhibition “America’s Wilderness in Art: A Growing Collection”
When: January 13-March 21, 2010
Where: 2928 San Marcos, Los Olivos, 805-688-1082,
www.wildlingmuseum.orgFee: Free; suggested donation $3.00 per person
