Plein Air Meets Hollywood
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| Paul Grimm, untitled, after 1932. UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art |
The Hollywood dream factory was the daily grind for some so-called California Impressionists. An upcoming show at UC Irvine's Langson Orange County Museum of Art explores the intersection between California Plein Air painting and motion picture set design, matte painting, animation, and special effects. Artists include Mary Blair, Edward Biberman, Conrad Buff, Maynard Dixon, Edith Head, George Hurrell, Dong Kingman, Emily Kosa Jr., and Granville Redmond.
"Staging California in Early Hollywood" is at the Langson OCMA, Segerstrom Center, June 26 to Oct. 4, 2026.
Comments
> between California Plein
> Air painting and motion
> picture set design...
A theme that would fit a temporary exhibit at the Lucas or AMPAS museum too.
It's also a reminder that the gatekeepers of culture very much filter things through the lens of taste, money, politics, geography, personal contacts.
As for the professionalism of a museum in Orange County compared with one in Los Angeles, after pondering the long-time history of LACMA, I'd originally have theorized it was more in the vicinity of the Laguna Pageant of Masters than [insert name of world-class museum here].
Farther south is the San Diego Zoo. Why an organization like that has a history of professionalism in its field while LA's public art museum in its field generally doesn't is a question going back to 1965. Perhaps it can be answered by the overseers of even a second-tier museum like the Fine Arts one in Houston. In certain ways they've been more sophisticated in managing their museum than LACMA's people have been.
How come, Richard, Kenneth, Earl, Andrea, Michael?
On the subject of newspapers and arts coverage, the NYT provided readers with a multi-page, foldout reproduction of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. See the June 14th, print edition. The reproduction accompanied an article about looking at art. Other paintings were part of the exercise.
In the comments section here, Ted and I recently discussed the Bosch painting. Uncanny.
--- J. Garcin