Plein Air Goes Hollywood
Paul Grimm, Approaching Storm , about 1925. James Irvine Swinden Family Collection The Depression years were grim times for Southern California's colony of visual artists. Some found work in the motion picture studios, designing sets and costumes. Many of the artists recruited were plein air landscape painters—"California Impressionists." Though some had achieved national reputations in the 1920s, their naturalism was considered derivative and outdated. That however was no problem at the studios, which needed painted backdrops indistinguishable from life. It was thus California artists who established the look and feel of setbound Hollywood pictures of mid-century ( The Wizard of Oz to The Sound of Music ). In this way little-heralded West Coast artists may have had broader influence than the East Coast version of "American Impressionism." This under-recognized story is the subject of an exhibition at UC Irvine's Langson Orange County Museum, "Stagi...
