Bay Area Scene Paintings

I said to the woman at the front desk, “It’s funny how I have to come down here from San Francisco to see Bay Area paintings…”   She laughed, and apparently they have been hearing comments like this a lot at the Hilbert Museum.  Yes, the best Bay Area art exhibit right now is down in Orange County. Bay Area Scene Paintings is on view until April 27, 2019 and well worth checking out if you’re down south.  

Plenty of artists I was unfamiliar with.  A bunch of lovely work that even featured the hideous and long gone Embarcadero Freeway. I actually am glad that freeway is preserved in some paintings.  Jack Laycox’s 1959 painting shows when it was brand new.

Will we ever get to see these up north? I would never expect them to make room for an exhibit like this among the baubles and schamtas at one of those San Francisco museums.  But the Oakland Museum needs to step up and show this work.

A Visit to Orange, California

 

The first time I was in California I was just 11.  We stayed with friends in Orange, California near Anaheim. Years later I found myself back in Orange today.  The draw was Chapman University.  As a mega-fan of the great Huell Howser, I have been wanting to visit the California’s Gold Exhibit and Huell Howser Archive.  It was, of course, Amazing!  They might need to borrow the portrait I did of Huell.

Close by is the university’s Hilbert Museum. I spotted this smallish museum online.  I am so glad I discovered this one.  They have an excellent collection of California art.  The current exhibition is from the archives of the Automobile Club of Southern California featuring work commissioned for the covers of their member magazine including some fantastic Maynard Dixons that I had never seen before.  The Hilbert Museum is only a few years old, but it now has a place on my list of museums to visit when I head south.