The Irvine Museum presents Paradise Found: Summer in California, an exhibition on view June 16 through September 20, 2012.
Paradise Found: Summer in Californiafeatures a selection of paintings by California Impressionists that show various familiar views of California as they appeared nearly a century ago, before the great population growth of the late twentieth century.
Louis Betts, Mid-Winter, Coronado Beach, c. 1907, The Irvine Museum
Starting in the early 1900s, Southern California became a popular destination for impressionist and plein air painters. A French expression, which means “in the open air,” plein air is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors. The mild climate in California allowed for numerous opportunities to paint outdoors, and a rich variety of subject matter, ranging from expansive beaches, to snow-capped mountains, to desert, and to rolling hills, was within one day’s travel.
Dedicated to the preservation and display of California art of the Impressionist Period (1890-1930), The Irvine Museum plays a principal role in the education and furtherance of this important regional variant of American Impressionism that has come to be associated with California and its landscape.
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