November 17, 2001 - April 14, 2002 California's Native Grandeur: Preserving Vanishing Landscapes Natural Sciences Special Gallery Presented by the Natural Sciences Department sponsors

Guy Rose, Carmel Seascape c. 1918, oil on canvas Private collection Courtesy of The Irvine Museum

The striking landscapes and clear, intense light of California have served as inspiration for painters from the time they first arrived on the West Coast. California's Native Grandeur: Preserving Vanishing Landscapes is an exhibition of approximately 50 paintings that documents the visions of these early landscape painters.

The exhibition features some of the best work of such renowned California painters as William Wendt, Granville Redmond, Maynard Dixon, William Keith, Thomas Hill, Paul Grimm and Guy Rose. The paintings are drawn from public and private collections throughout the state, including several works from the collection of the Oakland Museum of California.

The evocative 19th- and early 20th-century paintings celebrate the state's natural scenic and biological diversity. The exhibition portrays the state's landscapes, region by region, from the stark beauty of the desert to the South Coast, which is home to more native plant and animal species, and more native species at risk, than any other region in the United States. The exhibition includes biographical information for one significant artist in each of the seven regions depicted.

The exhibition is accompanied by an environment of natural sounds from the various regions of the state, produced by the Oakland Museum of California's Library of Natural Sounds.

Organized by The Nature Conservancy of California in collaboration with The Irvine Museum, the exhibition reflects the Conservancy's mission of safeguarding California's landscapes and native species. The exhibition narrative surveys the accomplishments of the modern conservation movement and underlines the need to act quickly and on a large scale to ensure that much of this diverse and unique environment is not lost forever.

California is one of only five regions of the world with a Mediterranean climate, each region rich in animal and plant species. California's approximately 4,300 species of flowering plants make up one-fourth of those in the United States and Canada combined, and half of these species are found nowhere else. Rapid population growth and associated development threaten the survival of many of the state's unique lands, inland and coastal waters and native species.

The exhibition begins in the deserts, with their crystal-clear light and deep shadows. Next, the Sierra Nevada, famous for its rugged terrain and the breathtaking national monuments Yosemite, Lake Tahoe and Mount Whitney, also includes a gentler landscape of pine-covered slopes, wetlands, streams, lakes and meadows. The North Coast and Shasta-Cascades are some of California's wildest and most remote landscapes, which today are threatened by logging and the encroachment of suburban housing. The Great Central Valley, which has been changed drastically in the past 150 years by agriculture and development, is the site of an ancient sea and one of the flattest places on earth. The populous Central Coast, stretching from San Luis Obispo County to Marin County, is varied in landscape, from beaches and wetlands to forests and coastal mountain ranges. The exhibition ends with California's species-rich South Coast, from Santa Barbara south to Baja California, a region of rugged hills, steep mountains, gentle valleys, deep canyons, and spectacular cliffs overlooking sandy beaches.

Paul Grimm, Desert Flowers oil on board Private collection Courtesy of The Irvine Museum

Early landscape painters in northern California, from the mid-19th century until well past the turn of the 20th century, worked in a Romantic-Realist style associated with the French Barbizon school. Southern California landscape painting was dominated, beginning in the 1890s, by Impressionists whose subject was the natural light on the landscape, painted outdoors in what became known as the plein-air style.

The exhibition is based on the book Native Grandeur: Preserving California's Vanishing Landscapes, published by The Nature Conservancy of California. The exhibition curator is Louisa Hufstader of The Nature Conservancy. Project manager for the presentation of the exhibition in Oakland is Tom Steller, chief curator of natural sciences at the Oakland Museum of California.

On Sunday, March 17, from 2 to 4 p.m., a Family Explorations! program, Sense of Place, will provide a more in-depth look at California landscapes. Families will work with artists and naturalists in the galleries and gardens exploring and drawing California landscapes.

After opening in Oakland, the exhibition will travel to the Napa Valley Museum in Yountville, California; San Diego Natural History Museum; Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History; Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the Irvine Museum.

California's Native Grandeur: Preserving Vanishing Landscapes is made possible by the generous support of the Oakland Museum Women's Board.

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