Santa Barbara School of the Arts: 1920-1938

NOTICIAS Quarterly Magazine Of The Santa Barbara Historical Society Vol. XL. Nos. 3. 4

Autumn & Winter 1994

School of the Arts

his special double issue ofNOTICIAS is devoted to the story ofthe Santa Barbara School ofthe Arts. From igzo to 1938, the School played a pivotal role in the cultural life ofthe city. Thefaculty included some ofthefinest artis tic talent in the nation and a number ofthe Schools students went on to create national reputations in their own right. Santa Barbaras present-day reputation as an important art center is due in no small part to the lasting legacy ofthe Santa Barbara School ofthe Arts.

THEAVTHOKS: Qloria Bpcfmd Martin is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at Stanford University.

Her articles on Santa Barbara artists include, "The Art ofI(ay Strong,”Fine Art and Antiques International, February 1994,and Then and Now:Two(generations ofSan ta Barbara Landscape Painters,” Antiques and Fine Art. November/December 1991.

She has co-curated the exhibitions. Individual Artists Program Retrospective (April igg^-February iggs) cmd Strong Spirit: A Century of Santa Barbara Landscape Painters(September iggi-March iggz).

Michael P^dmon is editor ofNOTlClAS and is Director ofResearch and Publica tionsfor the Santa Barbara Historical Society. He writes a weekly column on regional historyfora heal newspaper.

The authors wish to thank,thefollowingfor their assistance: Victor Bartolome;John Nichols;Ellen Easton;Marlene Schulz;Sherrill Henderson;Mary Louise Days;James Armstrong; Beatrice Farwell; Patricia Cleek; Cheri Peake; Edward Ppbinson; Mary Corrigan;Lori B}tchie,Librarian,Special Collections, VC Santa Barbara;Lynette Korenic at the Arts Library, VC Santa Barbara;Sandra P^hing, P,egistrar, University Art Museum, VC Santa Barbara;Ppnald Crazier,Librarian,Santa Barbara Museum ofArt;and the staffat the library ofthe Natio-nal Qeographic Society.

Front cover is a reproduction ofthe winning entry by Betty Shropshire in the nationunde poster competition held by the Santa Barbara School ofthe Arts in igz8. Wherea bouts ofthe original artwork is unknown. P^-illustrated color image lent by Mr. and Mrs.John C. Woodward.Backcoverimage isfrom the School’s igz6-zjProspectus.

Life dates ofthose associated with Santa Barbara’s art community or the School are given when known.All photographs arefrom the collection ofthe Santa Barbara Histori cal Society unless otherwise noted.

Michael Redmon, Editor Judy Sutcliffe, Designer

® 1994 The Santa Barbara Historical Society 136 E. De la Guerra Street, Santa Barbara, California 93101 Single copies $10.00

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NOTICIAS

od^ too few people know of the 53.nta Barbara 5chool of the hrts. Flourishing during the 1920s, the School brought together a pantheon of illustrious artists, photogra phers, designers, composers, and writers. A recent revival of the tradition of representa tional art has sparked renewed interest in many of the artists connected to the School, both faculty and students. Tlie School was deeply rooted in the communi ty; through lectures, exhibits, con tests, children's classes, and oth er programs, the School became an important part of a cultural Renaissance that Santa Barbara underwent in the 1920s.

Californio past, artists have congregated in this city since the late 1800s.

The most significant architectural monument of the Spanish colonial period (1782-1822), Mission Santa Barbara, stirred the imaginations of Henry Chap man Ford (1828-1894) and Alexander Harmer (1856-1925), the principal 19thcentury forerunners to the artists associated with the School of the Arts. Of the twentyone Alta California mis sions, only Mission Santa Barbara remained under constant Franciscan con

Although Santa Barbara had a population of only 20,000 in 1920. the city was the most important art center be tween San Francisco and Los Angeles and. with the establishment of the School by a group of public-spirited artists and pa trons, the region would attain national rec ognition. The year following the School’s founding, an article in The American Mag azine ofArt reported, "Here in this artist's paradise have gathered a colony which in cludes the men and women famous in our 1

world of art in the United States today.

Fernand Lungren (1856-1932), a major fig ure of American regional art and the School’s first president, concurred, "As a field for artistic endeavor, it would be im possible to find a spot more favored than Santa Barbara."2 Drawn by the beauty of the area’s mountains, canyons, and ocean vistas, at tracted by the Mediterranean-like climate that allows out-of-doors painting yearround, enchanted by the architecture of the

trol, its altar light burning continuously for over two centuries. The mission large ly escaped the pillage, altera tion. and ruination suffered by some of the other missions.

Henry Chapman Ford, Santa Barba ra's first resident professional painter, ar rived in 1875. He wrote in his manu script, The Mission Era of California, that, "The situation of the Santa Barbara Mission is perhaps more beautiful and commanding than that of any other of the Franciscan establishments . . . and here artists find inspiration for their brush and writers for their pen.”^ In 1894, Alexander Harmer, Southern California’s foremost 19th-century paint er, moved to Santa Barbara. Trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Harmer had become fascinated by the themes and images of the American West, twice joining the U.S. Army to travel along the frontier. His fascination with regional subjects continued after his

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SCHOOL OF THE ARTS arrival in Santa Barbara. He devoted him self to painting images of the state’s Cali fornio past in his canvases, commercial il lustrations. and in his series of California Mission plates, executed for Wedgwood of England.

Harmer and Ford, in the forefront of both the early conservation and preserva tionist movements, contributed substan tially to the restoration of the missions and the revival in art, architecture, and lit erature of California's distinctive tradi tions. Following the completion of the fi nal railroad link to Santa Barbara in 1901, Harmer built a complex of studios to es tablish the beginning of Santa Barbara’s colony of artists. The artists’ community around the studio-residence of Harmer ex panded in the first two decades of the cen tury, receiving national attention when Thomas Moran (1837-1927) began to winter in Santa Barbara and occupied a Harmer studio. Often called the last of the 19th-century American romantic land scape painters. Moran lived in Santa Bar bara the final decade of his life.

Artists continued to arrive in the first two decades of the 1900s. A partial list in cludes husband and wife landscapists Thaddeus (1844-1919) and Ludmilla Welch (1867-1925); Fernand Lungren and Carl Oscar Borg (1879-1947), painters of the American Southwest and their native inhabitants; pkin air painter John Gamble (1863-1957); muralists-portraitists Albert (1871-1950) and Adele Herter (18691946); and landscapist De Witt Parshall (1864-1956). In 1921, cowboy artist Ed ward Borein (1873-1945) would arrive, as would landscapist Colin Campbell Cooper (1856-1937). Santa Barbara had become home to an art colony of stunning talent.

By 1920, a new sense of civic identity, based on the historic preservationist movement that had swept Southern Cali-

fornia in recent decades, was taking root in Santa Barbara. As population and urbani zation grew, the pastoralism of the ranchero era. often seen through rose-colored glasses, seemed to offer an alternative.

Many were ready to nostagically embrace the slower pace of a romantically imagined past. In the period 1900-1920, an effort be gan to give the city its own architectural "look”, utilizing various Mediterranean styles, an effort that intensified in the 1920s.

The city had a tradition of community festivals dating back to the celebration of the mission centennial in 1886. One of the most magnificent of these was the 1908 celebration honoring the arrival of the Great White Fleet, part of the U.S. Navy that President Theodore Roosevelt had sent on an around-the-world tour. The artistic director of this celebration was Alexander Alexander Manner’s studio/residence ojfDe la Quetra PlazA "was at the center ofSanta Barbara’s artists’ colony until Manner’s death in 1925.

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Internationally -renoioned landscape painter Tlio^nas TAoran brought a new level o/pn-estige to the local art community in the igzos.

NOTICIAS Greece CO chc Renaissance. The musical director and one of the chief organizers of these community productions was Ar thur Farwell(1872-1952).

Despite a college degree in electrical engineering, Farwell had turned to music as a career, with training in Boston and Europe. He threw himself into composing and into the promotion of music at the community level. AH across the country, Farwell organized concerts, plays, danc es, and established community orches tras. His interest in the grass roots of American music was also reflected in his compositions, which often incorporated Native American themes. Although his sojourn in Santa Barbara was brief, his impact on the community was great.

On June 15, 1920, Farwell chaired a public meeting in the Santa Barbara Pub lic Library to discuss the formation of a "Festival Arts Association.” This was the first step in forming what would be come the School of the Arts. In the audi ence. there at the behest of Farwell, was Fernand Lungren.

Although acclaimed "the foremost desert painter" of the early 20th century in the epic survey. Art Across America,'^

Harmer and the winning float from the pa rade was a replica of the Old Mission.

The origin of the School of the Arts may be traced to the presentation in 1920 of two community masques. In February, Wallace Rice's La Primavera was staged to a highly enthusiastic response. The produc tion was a romantic celebration of Santa Barbara’s past, tracing the history of the city from the era of the Chumash Indians to the arrival of the Americans in the 1840s. This success gave rise to another production in July, The Quest, a historical pageant covering the period from classical

Lungren today is still insufficiently ap preciated. because, in part, esteem for landscape painting has fluctuated since his death and many of his works have not been easily accessible. His reputation also has suffered because an iconoclastic temperament led him to rebel against the traditions of the art world competitions, critics, and, especially, academies.

It is somewhat ironic that the person who wrote in 1911, "I set myself against schools, electing to work out my own salvation."5 would nine years later help found a school of art.

Born in Maryland, he, like Harmer. studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

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the Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins before attending the Academic Ju lian in Paris. A maverick, he quit after two months, at the time un able to comprehend the value of or submit to the disciplined method of instruction that he believed pro duced technical proficiency but sti fled individuality and originality.

Later, in his unfinished memoirs (printed posthumously by the School) he would somewhat recant: Of course now I realize how wrong-headed my impression was. and also realize the years of desperate hard work I might have saved myself had I gone and done likewise; but. as I say, H I was ignorant and intolerant.^ H Having severed himself from the "benefits” as well as the perceived "drawbacks” of the atelier, he proceeded to study on his own, influenced by the French Impressionists to work directly from nature. However, call ing himself an "impressionist or memorist,” he devised a distinctive working method chat combined direct observation

Arthur Farwdl's time in Santa Barbara may have been brief, but his impact on the cultural life ofthe city ivas great. Farwell called the initial organizational meeting that resulted in the founding ofthe Santa Barbara School of the Arts. Courtesy of Brice Farwcll.

with impressions remembered.

ta Barbara in 1907, where at first he main

Lungren left Paris in 1884, returning to the Midwest, where he became interested

tained a studio in the Harmcr complex.

Even chough he found "the peculiar and fortunate circumstances of its location

in the possibilities of using scenes from American Indian life and from the Ameri can West as subject matter for his arc. In the 1890s, he moved westward and im mersed himself in the tribal life of Indians in the Southwest, eventually becoming a honorary member of the Hopi tribe. In a letter he explains how for several years he had painted the Indians in their ceremoni als until he became enthralled by "the great out-of-doors of the country."7 His travels finally brought him to San-

upon the sea”8 ideal, he made few pictures of the area, saying, "Wlicn I am too old CO paint the desert I will stay here and paint the coast.”9 Instead, he developed a profound rapture for the California desert, particularly Death Valley. He resolved to form a permanent collection of paintings chat would chronicle in pigment "the desert under all conditions. . . . It is a work which cannot be delayed, for al ready the desert is undergoing transforma-

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tion, not disappearing, for in one place or 10 another it will always exist.

Death Valley Morning manifests in oil what he euphorically reveals in words, a 19th-century romantic quest for the sub lime beauty of the desert:

considerable fear in that era) co complete Death Valley M.oming. He bequeathed it and over three hundred works compris ing his permanent collection of paintings to "the people of the City of Santa Bar bara.”!^ It was included in the 1933 Me morial Exhibit at

Its unspeakable Its mystery, solitude, its un

County National Bank and Trust.

His friend and col

speakable thrills, ecstasy, of wide spaces, its depressions, the great rounded dome

league at the School, Colin Campbell Cooper, wrote in the exhi bition catalogue that Lungren’s relandscapes a sounded like

of the heavens, and the subtle caress of its fe verish winds.

symphony played in tones of beauti fully color.

There may be for poetry thought in the ocean, but how much more, of the desert — to| me it has a wild appeal. It thrills, it ensnares—I have

not

the

power to resist its call. It is wonderful,li

graduated

Lungren’s in terest in regional American themes

Fernand Lunigren was thefirst president ofthe School ofthe Arts and served the longest tenure on its board ofdirectors. This portrait ofLungren was executed by FranhMorley Fletcher, who would eventually become Director ofthe School.

This painting presents the "alluring’’ panorama of Dante’s View, what Lungren describes in unpublished notes as "the great view, filled with wonder, that should be experienced in the morning.^2 h marks Lungren's late period in which he deletes man and animal to probe the deserts unfathomable mystery which holds me."

At age seventy-three, just before his death, the intrepid Lungren made one last pilgrimage by himself to Dante’s View (a

as subject for art and his experienc es during his years of residence in Cincinnati, where he had

been favorably impressed by the civic music festivals, undoubtedly had him thinking along lines similar to FarwelL to establish an arts organization that would bring the community together and foster the city’s sense of unique identity. This or ganization would be dedicated to art in the broadest sense, involving as many people as possible in music, drama, dance, as well as the graphic, decorative, and plastic arts. Lungren was elected the School’s first president in August. 1920, and he would continue to serve on the

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SCHCXDL OF THE ARTS School’s board until his death in 1932. In

CO lead the individual student to a wor

coming years, the School's letterhead would list Fernand Lungren as "Founder.”

Events moved swiftly in the months following the June organizational meeting.

The group went through a number of name changes before settling upon "The Santa Barbara School of the Arcs,” al

thy achievement.

Farwell resigned in November, 1920, the month the School opened, and passes from the scene. He was replaced by Bernhard Hoffmann, one of the leaders in the movement to give Santa Barbara a unified architectural appearance. Hoffmann was instrumental in organizing the Architectu ral Advisory Committee to oversee this process. Hoffmann became another link between the School and Santa Barbara’s

though when the group formally incorpo rated in January, 1921, it was under the name "Santa Barbara School of the Arcs Society.” An early statement laid out the purpose of the School:

new civic identity.

The School opened in the venerable Dominguez adobe at 936 Santa Barbara Street. The broad curriculum included

(to allow people) to engage, under the conditions afforded by a community enterprise, in the study of different arc... CO extend this opportunity in the widest possible manner, and to make it possible for all persons of the commu nity. young and old, to study any ar tistic subjects of their choice under the advantageous conditions which can be procured only in a cooperative and non-profit-seeking enterprise (to) devel op a spirit of fellowship in the arts . . .

poetry, drama, music, drawing and paint ing. photography, dance, sculpture, de sign, interior decoration, crafts, architec ture, landscape gardening, and languages.

The School reached out to the community with concerts, masques, lectures, and art exhibitions. The first exhibition held in the School’s gallery established by Lun gren included paintings by Harmer, Lud-

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The Dominguez ig2.^ earthquake.

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Santa Barbara Street. Itserved as headquartersfor the School until the

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milla Welch. Lockwood de Forest. Sr, (1850-1932). and Moran. Tuition was kept at a minimum to encourage maximum community involvement and membership dues of the affiliated Santa Barbara School

One ofthe many distinguished rebresentational landscape painters wlw taught during the School’sformative years was De Witt Parshall.

Photograph by Edwin and Carolyn Glcdhill.

of the Arts Society were as little as two dollars a year. Many of the instructors do nated their time and talent or charged vir tually nothing for their services. The School also drew upon sources outside San ta Barbara for faculty, bringing in people from the University of California and Stanford University.

In the early 1920s. the School became a part of the Community Arts Association.

TTiis important cultural institution consist ed of four branches; in addition to the School, there was Music. Drama, and Plans and Planting. Although the School would later incorporate as a separate enti ty, the ties to the Association always re mained strong. The Community Arts As sociation no longer exists, but the presentday Community Arts Music Association is a direct descendant of the Association’s Music Branch.

Painting and Drawing The faculty could claim some of Santa Barbara’s, indeed California's, most emi nent artists. Landscape painters included Fernand Lungren, De Witt Parshall, Carl Oscar Borg, Colin Campbell Cooper, John Marshall Gamble, and Belmore Browne (1880-1954). Muralists and portrait paint ers Dudley Carpenter (1870-1955) and Al bert Herter also joined the staff. As an indi cation of their national reputations.

Lungren, Parshall, and Cooper had been se lected to exhibit with artists from all over the globe in the 1915 Panama-Pacific Inter national Exposition in San Francisco. Par shall, Cooper, and Herter had been induct ed into the National Academy of Design in

New York and Browne would join them in 1928.

Most had embarked on pilgrimages to Paris, the international center of art dur ing the late 19th and early 20th centu ries. joining the substantial colony of American artists studying at the French Academies. Parshall, Cooper. Carpenter, Hcrter, and Gamble congregated there in the 1890s. The exhibitions of the Paris Salon marked the artistic highlight of the year, with all but Gamble participating.

Acceptance in these exhibitions was a significant achievement for American art ists and brought international acclaim.16 At the 1890 Salon, Herter received an Honorable Mention for his painting, La femme de Buddha, singling him out as one of only ninety-five Americans to win

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SCHOOL OF THE ARTS awards at the Paris Salons between 1800 and 1899.1’^ De Witt Parshall, one of the foremost American landscape painters of the early 20th century, was also admitted to the 1890 Salon with his Portrait deMmeW "The day the Salon opened, I walked miles looking for my picture and couldn’t find it. At last I saw it—’way up on the fourth or fifth line, so far away you almost had to have a glass to see it.’’18 He had sailed to Europe five years earlier, first attending the Royal Academy in Dresden before taking classes at the Academies Julian and Corman in Paris. "I lived with Charles Rollo Peters, a San Franciscan,’’ recalled Parshall. "and he talked by the year of California, its 'fabulous’ people, its scenery and all. I guess that is what brought me ” 19 out here many years later.

Parshall, Peters, and others, like James A. McNeil Whistler, belong to a distinc tive school of American art called Tonalism, which would reach its height between 1880 and 1915. An aesthetic tradition that embraces both painting and photography, it includes painters George Innes, (L.) Birge Harrison, and William Keith, as well as the photo-secessionists, William Dyer, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Steichen. Influenced by English, French, and Dutch landscape painters,20 Tonalism op poses Impressionism and in critical aspects foreshadows the strain of American mod ernism which would lead to the Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s.

Although the Tonalists derive their pictures from the direct observation of na ture, they paint, like Lungren, the final im age from memory, because their romantic vision seeks to express the poetic spirit rather than just the material appearance of the landscape. Concerned with mood, they capture the veiled, atmospheric light that transcends the momentary; they frequent-

ly reflect the muted tones of twilight and moonlight in early spring or late autumn.

Birge Harrison, founder of the Art Stu dents’ League’s Summer School at Woodstock, influenced a number of Santa Bar bara artists while living in Montecito at the end of the century. A decade after re turning to the East, he described the movement’s lyrical view of the landscape: Its soul is the spirit of light. . . . To this and to the ambient and allenveloping atmosphere, with its clouds and its mists, its rain and its veiling haze, are due the infinite and evershifting moods of nature.21 Tonalism represented a major force in America in 1892, when the Chicago World’s Fair exhibited Parshall’s painting of the Swiss Alps. Acceptance in the exhi bition proved a watershed, for he returned to America and thereafter devoted himself to landscape painting. His reputation as a landscape painter steadily grew, and twelve years later, the National Academy of Design nominated him to membership.

Together with Thomas Moran and four other Academicians, Parshall was invited by the Santa Fe Railroad to travel by pri vate car to paint the Grand Canyon.

Deeply affected, Parshall focused for the next eight years on images of the region to the extent that he became known as "the painter of the Grand Canyon.’’ In 1964, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, honored him by hanging his works from this period in a small oneman exhibition mounted from the Met’s

holdings.

Wliile out West painting the Grand Canyon in 1913, Parshall visited Moran in Santa Barbara, and recalled how after din ner one evening the elder artist ". . . gave me a fine talk on art. Thomas Moran be-

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longs CO a period when arrises made piC' twes."^^ Four years later, Parshall perma nently joined Moran and the Santa Barbara artists’ community, and thereafter devoted himself to landscapes and seascapes of Cal ifornia.

With De Witt came his artist son, Douglass (1899-1990), who initially occupied one of Alexander Harmer's studios.

First a student of Fletcher and then himself a teacher of landscape painting and sketch ing at the School, the younger Parshall later supervised the region’s Federal Arts Project during the 1930s, A prolific and varied art ist-figures, portraits, horses—in his later years, he concentrated on landscapes in the realist tradition. In a interview eight years before his death, he described his approach: I attempt to be realistic, with a certain amount of imagination. I don’t limit myself to an exact chronicle of what actually happened in any particular situ ation. because I think that would limit the art. TTiey're my own experiences, of course, visual experiences, rather than something just purely imaginative. 23 Carl Oscar Borg was a romantic of poet ic temperament and demeanor. Contempo raries remarked on his aesthetic appearance as "rather like the romantic conception of an artist."24 He was drawn. like l3e Witt Parshall, to the sublime majesty of the Grand Canyon. Upon seeing one of Borg's commanding interpretations in oil, Thomas Moran was moved to comment that he re garded Borg "pre-eminently the highest grade of any artist in America today. 25 A native of Sweden, Borg taught land scape painting at the School during its first four years and lived intermittently in Santa Barbara until his death there. Best remem bered for his paintings of American Indians in which he often emphasized the vastness

and monumencality of the Southwest landscape in broad brush strokes and viv id colors, he is less well known for his lyrical landscapes of the Santa Barbara region. In fact, one critic recently specu lated whether "Borg ever felt comforta ble with pure landscape."26 The lumi nous serenity of his Santa Barbara landscapes belies this speculation and re flects Borg’s espoused belief that art was "a kind of religion, the worship of the beauty in nature."27 Although mostly self-taught, Borg al lowed that William Wendt, who may have introduced him to the Santa Barba ra landscape, imparted to him "more about painting than anyone else.”28 Borg spent most of 1907 and 1908 in Santa Barbara, making several trips to the Channel Islands, in his view "about the wildest place you can possibly think of but . . . QUEAT STUFF FOI{ PICTX7Z^£5."29 After Phoebe Apperson Hearst discovered "a most charming sketch made by you" of the islands,80 she became his patron, sending her pro tege abroad in 1910, where he remained until the outbreak of the First World War. In Paris, he embraced French Im pressionism, but rejected the modernist trends then in vogue.

The year 1913 represented a critical year for Borg; the Salon accepted three paintings and the Jules Gautier Gallery honored him with a one-man exhibition.

Featuring a review of his successful show, L’Art et les Artistes praised Borg for the way "he imbues his noble works with poetry.”31 Five years later, once again with the financial assistance of Hearst, Borg built a house on the Mesa in Santa Barbara, patterned after an old Spanish church.

He wrote of the region in his diary.

"There is something about all places in

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS Santa Barbara that is different from most places I have known. Everything still has the dolce far niente of old California—I mean Spanish California, of course."^2 Colin Campbell Cooper shared Borg’s

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at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Campbell, recalling chose days, wrote in his unpublished autobiography: A great artist was Eakins . . . though as a teacher he was, I chink, too severe in his demand for the construction and made coo little of the importance of movement and vitality. . . . This re sulted in his students making learned chough rather static drawings, which, while it was an excellent foundation and produced great solidity, it had also the tendency of leading to stolidity.35

Carl Oscar Borg inscribed thisfavorite photo^aph ofhimselftofellcnv artist William Otte and

his wife. distaste for European modernism and de fended the Impressionist style which still dominated California art during the 1920s.

Borg lamented, "I try to be liberal and open minded, but . . . looking at some of the so-called modern work from every standpoint, one is absolutely overwhelmed by the absolute bad taste that prevails.

Not one redeeming feature.”33 Cooper agreed and decried modernist theories such as . . .'abstraction by distortion.’ 'the si multaneousness of the ambient,''the prin ciple of inner necessity' . . . in general this so-called 'modern art’ is hopelessly de pressing and banal.’’ 34 Campbell’s training began, like Lun gren’s, under the realist, Thomas Eakins,

In 1886, Cooper continued his educa tion at the Academies Julian, Delecluse and Vitci in Paris. Unlike Lungren, Coop er thrived under the French academysalon system and had a drawing, VneAu' dalouse, accepted for the 1890 Salon.

Cooper was also greatly influenced by the French Impressionists, for he adopted en pUin air painting, explaining later, "There is something in the sparkle of the thing... like grace notes in a bat of music—that must be noted in an instant."36 By 1920, Cooper had achieved interna tional stature, when the French govern ment acquired the painting. Fifth Avenue, New York, which had been awarded a gold medal at the 1915 Panama-Pacific In ternational Exposition. Cooper came to Santa Barbara in 1921, about which he said, "Since I delight in sunlight I have it at its best." He continues in his notes, "I find Santa Barbara conducive to the sort of thing a painter most craves—climate, flowers, mountains, seascapes, etc., with a community interested in all sorts of artis tic matters.”37 While Borg’s paintings of Santa Bar bara reveal a vision of reverential intima cy, those of Cooper look onto one of worldly pleasure and vitality. Cooper's

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Albert Herter,in costumefor his role as the kiug,in his pl^y, The Gift of Eternal Life. JJie Drama

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Branch ofthe Community Arts Aissociatiot^erformed the play at the Lobero Theatre during the i^z8-zg season.

Julian. After returning to America, he lived first in New York and then Denver before moving to Santa Barbara in 1920. In addition to

works from his Santa Barbara ■_ period shift in subject, spirit, and style, for while architec tural themes predominate in his diverse pre-California oeuvre, scenic gardens consti tute a major aspect of his last sixteen years. gardenscapes charming as abroad I do

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in 1892, where, following De Witt Parshall and Cooper, he studied at the Academie

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found anything more exqui- I site in that respect than the I gardens of California in Pasa- ® dena and Montecito.’’38 xhe lush gardens of the hotels El Encanto and Samarkand were among his favorite in Santa Barbara, which he portrays in patterns of flickering light and lustrous color. Stylistically, his late work more closely approaches French Impressionism, than does chat of Lungren, Parshall, or Borg. Cooper provides us with the key to understanding the effect of Im pressionism on his painting by summing up his method in the third person, "Almost in variably he paints his subjects under an ef fect of brilliant sunlight. 39 Although the majority of the painters connected with the School pursued land scape painting, Dudley Carpenter and Al bert Herter specialized in murals and por traits. Born in Nashville. Tennessee, Carpenter trained in New York at the Art Students’ League before going abroad. At the League, Carpenter "drew, drew, and drew” and discovered the Impressionists.^0 His interest in French art took him to Paris

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teaching at the School, he designed sets for and acted in plays staged by the Drama Branch of the Community Arts Association, He was one of several artists connect ed with the School to paint murals for El Paseo. In 1925,

I he executed four tondos (re . \ cently restored) depicting events in the life of Sc. Fran: cis on the ceiling of what is now the vestibule of El Paseo Restaurant.

From 1930 until 1932, Carpenter taught portrait painting and was noted first for his painted and then for his sculpted portraits. Carpenter explained chat, because of the lack of buyers for paintings during the Depression, he was part of a group of painters who turned to sculpture.'il Head of'R}co Lebrun, one of his most significant portraits, he modeled in clay in 1946, the year Lebrun (19001964) moved from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles. The bust of the influential muralisc was cast in bronze two years after his death and entered the collection of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. While maintaining a residence on Long Island, Albert Herter established a Santa Barbara studio in 1909 at ElMirasol, the estate of his mother. After Mary Herter's death, Albert converted El Mirasol into a luxury hotel. ^2 He and his art ist wife Adeic, whom Albert had met when they were both students in Paris,

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

decorated it with exquisite objets d’art, mu rals. and textiles. ELMirasol came to em body Herter’s vision of an ideal interior;

57 Albert Herter’s mural,Johann Gucenbere Print ing the First Bible, was installed in the Danta Barbara Public Library in 2937. jflHAMK cuTswtifr:;;; I .. PRimiim THE FIRST

Every wall space, mantelpiece, corner or grouping of furniture should be a beautiful still life, its elements so juxta posed as to make in itself what is called a picture—a paintable thing just as it stands, with light and shades, harmo nies or contrasts.43 His father. Christian, introduced Albert to the world of design, for, as president of Herter Brothers, he created some of the most opulent and splendid interiors of the Aesthetic Movement during the American Renaissance following the Civil War. Christian’s clients included Mark Hopkins and Collis Potter Huntington in the West, and J. Pierpont Morgan and William H. Vanderbilt in the East.

Albert was not involved in Herter Brothers, but its closure may have prompted him to start Herter Looms. Lo cated in his mother’s former New York residence, and with showrooms in San

an opaline play of color in the main body of the tapestry. . . . TTere is no secret but a discovery of Mr, Herter’s.

The threads of the warp are of many hues, not, as heretofore in all the centu ries past of textile weaving, of the self same color.45

Francisco, Herter Looms (first named Aubusson Looms) is credited with reviving in America handwoven textiles of the most original design and technical innovation.

Herter’s tapestries, inspired by the Interna tional Style of the Late Gothic period rep resent his most sumptuous textiles. TTie Qothic Tapestry, with its lustrous tex ture created by subtle harmonies is charac teristic of his work: If we were to say they have a metallic lustre we should have to qualify the statement, for this brilliance is not hard but sufficiently chastened. If we were to speak of them as silken on the other hand, it were to ignore their decided weightiness and solidity. There is often

Herter is best remembered, however, as a muralist and portraitist. His most notable extant murals in California are those for the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, the Los Angeles Public Library, and the Santa Barbara Public Library.

Commissioned in 1926, the murals for the Los Angeles Public Library were the most ambitious public project that the city had ever undertaken. Herter won the competi tion to execute the murals for the Hope Street tunnel entrance to the library.46 Completed in 1928, they were moved a year later to the History Room, now the children’s library.

The original six murals chronicling California’s history include The Building of

NOTICIAS

58 a Mission and Fiesta at a Mission. Painted on canvas in his ELMirasol studio, Herter derived the paintings depicting the mission scenes from preliminary sketches made of nearby Mission Santa Barbara. A 1929 arti cle in California Arts and Architecture called them "the greatest public paintings which Los Angeles yet possesses. . . . Never will anyone forget them who has seen them even casually as he climbed the inner hill that leads to literature and education in Los Angeles.”47 Of the ten wall paintings pro posed for the History ofthe Printed Word in the Santa Barbara Public Library, only two were completed, Johann Qutenberg Printing the First Bible and Egyptian Hieroglyph, in stalled in 1937 and 1944 respectively. Lo cated in the main reading room, Albert Herter and Mrs. Frederick Gould donated them to the people of Santa Barbara.

In his later years, Herter focused more on portraiture, and many of those connect ed with the arts in Santa Barbara sat for him. The 1951 Memorial Exhibit contzined works by Albert of Mrs. Salisbury Field, whose playwright husband taught at the School of the Arts; the orientalist Nathan Bentz; and Keith Gledhill, whose portraits are now in the collection of the Santa Bar bara Historical Society.48 Herter’s many contributions to the cul tural life of Santa Barbara included both his association with the School and with the Drama Branch of the Community Arts Association. He taught drawing and served as a chairman of the School’s Advisory Board. In the classroom he cut a handsome and high-spirited figure. "He always came in a red fox-hunting jacket; he was a very dashing person," recalled student and sculp tor Alice de Creeft many years later.49 His flamboyant personality also drew him to the theater. In addition to designing sets for and acting in plays like Dudley Carpen ter, Herter wrote. The (Jift of Eternal Life,

An Indo'Persian Legend, for a cast of over one hundred-fifty actors, musicians, and dancers. Herter played the king, ar chitect Lutah Maria Riggs played a black slave, and dancer Ruth St. Denis was the courtesan. The Drama Branch presented it during the 1928-1929 season at the Lobero Theatre in six performances attend ed by 3711 people. The program for the tenth anniversary production of the Dra ma Branch recalled the "elaborate and gorgeous spectacle": There were superb ensemble scenes, marvellous costumes against rich backgrounds, and Ruth St. Denis as guest performer, who came as Mr. Hercer’s friend, took one of the lead ing roles and gave some of her won derfully colorful dances.50 Drama, /Ousic, and Dance Until September of 1927, drama, as well as music and dance, played an im portant role in the School’s offering of classes. The School developed a comple mentary relationship with the Music and Drama Branches of the Community Arts Association, for the School provided in struction in the performing arts, while the other two branches mounted produc tions at the School’s Little Theater or, later, in the Lobero TTeatre.

The Drama Department opened with a staff of seven and at one time or an other included Irving Pichel (7-1954) from Stanford University, a nationally recognized authority on the history and design of theaters; Richard Morgan, Art Director of the Majestic Theater in Los Angeles; Willamene Wilkes, Director of the Majestic TTieater; and Ian Wolfe, Associate Director of the Community Arts Players.

Roger Clerboisprepares to conduct aperformance,ca. ipi8. The bearded Antoni Van der Voort sits in thefirst violin chair.

The Department also attracted many visiting as well as local literati. New York playwright Victor Mapes (1870'1943), a frequent guest of the Thornes in Monteci-

Arthur Bliss (1891-1975), Sir Donald Francis Tovey (1875-1940), and Henry Eichheim (1870-1942). After Farwell’s de parture, Clerbois became head of the Mu

to at Las Tejas, lectured on play writing.

He wrote The Boomerang which ran for two years on BroadwaySl and The Hot tentot, performed by the Drama Branch at the Lobero Theatre for a three-day run in February. 1924. with attendance of 1,355.

sic Department and organized the Com

Salisbury Field (1878-1936) also taught play writing. Married to Robert Louis Ste venson’s daughter and the heiress of the Montecito estate, Stonehedge. Field was the author of Wedding Bells, first per formed on Broadway in 1919. Another well-known writer of the time. Wilbur Hall, taught masque writing. He wrote The Quest and collaborated on Luther Bur bank’s autobiography, The Harvest of the Years.

Arthur Farwell initiated a broad educa tional program in music with a faculty of twenty-two. including Roger Clerbois (1880-19527) and Antoni Van der Voort (1879-1952), which later attracted such il lustrious composers and conductors as Sir

munity Arts Orchestra (originally called the Clerbois Little Symphony) in 1921, the forerunner of the present-day Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra. A 1922 ar ticle described some of the department’s varied activities: The Community Arts Orchestra, of which Santa Barbara is so proud, is an other activity for which the school de serves much credit. Their rehearsals take place in the school, and their able leader Roger Clerbois, is head of the music department of the school. The musical life of the school is a large de partment, where everything along mu sical lines is taught. . .52 In 1908. four years before Clerbois came to the United States, Van der Voort, who had been concertmaster under Richard Strauss, arrived and played first

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60

violin with the Chicago Sym phony, Ac the School he taught orchestration and per formed with the Van der Voorc Ensemble.

Three years after the mu sic department's founding, Bliss, the "enfant terrible of relocated English music, with his American-born fa ther, Francis Edward Bliss— the

director

of

John

D.

Rockefeller’s British oil oper ations—to Santa Barbara.

The young composer and conductor, who had been Pro fessor of Music and Conduct ing at the Royal College of Music in Lon don, contributed to the expanding artistic life of Santa Barbara through his active in volvement with three of the four branches of the Community Arts Association. Bliss caught at the School, directed the Music Branch, and acted in and composed inci dental music for productions of the Drama Branch. In addition, he penned musical crit icism for the local newspapers and lectured.

As Director of the Music Branch, Bliss formed a chamber ensemble with the vio linist Roderick White and introduced a se ries of chamber music concerts about which he wrote at the time, "In order to woo a public, smoking is allowed and tea and refreshments served, and they are held, weather permitting, in the ideal setting of El Paseo.’’^^ In his memoirs, As 1 Ppnember, published almost half a century later.

Bliss recalled: The Pacific coast seemed unbelievably beautiful to me, and Santa Barbara its greatest gem. It was there that our long trek ended, my father buying a house [Pardero, today known as Tara\ in Montecito. He was to live there until he

SirArthur Bliss at Buckingham Palace, 1969.He hasjust received the Knight Commander ofthe Victorian Order.

died in 1930. Santa Bar bara appeared primarily a playground for the wealthy in the years be fore the Wall Street crash, but it also prided itself on maintaining an interest in the Arts.

This was fostered, as in many other American cities, by a Community Arts Association. I was soon actively engaged in this, accept ing a request to write incidental music for a current play on King Solomon at the local theatre.^ Bliss also waggishly reminisces how appreciation for music "accelerated” when Frank Morley Fletcher (18661949), Director of the School, invited a fellow Edinburgh professor, Sir Donald Francis Tovey(knighted in 1935), to join the faculty for the summer preceding his American debut as a pianist, I found his immense learning and au thoritative manner rather overwhelm ing. I had never met anyone with so encyclopedic a knowledge or with such a retentive memory. . . . This phenomenal memory for music went hand in hand with a compensating vagueness in practical matters. An en dearing picture comes to my mind of Tovey on the beach with me, prepar ing to bathe. As we undressed Tovey was discoursing—he never chattered, seldom talked—on Brahms. I was ready first and moved towards the

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS sea. Tovey followed, one boot on and one boot off, and quite oblivious, still the expositor, waded in. 55 Tovey. highly regarded as a pianist and composer, was even more renowned as a musicologist, whose analytical writ ings and lectures on Bach and Beethoven set the standard of the day. While con nected with the School during the summer session of 1924, he kept an active schedule which included a series of eight lectures.

The Practical Foundations ofMusical Cul ture, a class on Musical Interpretation, and two public concerts at El Paseo. His repu tation reached a high point upon his return to England with the publication of the lith Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica for which he wrote the majority of the articles on music.

Bliss writes of another musical lumi nary. Henry Eichheim, who in 1923 moved to Montecito with his concert pianist wife, Ethel. In a house designed for them by their

Dr. Henry Eichheim shows a student a ^oo-yearold Tibetan oboefrom his magnificent collection of musical instruments.

61

close friend, George Washington Smith, they, along with Van der Voort and others connected with the School, gave chamber music concerts. A pioneering ethnomusicologist of international repute, Eichheim lectured at the School on, among other top ics, the untapped opportunity Oriental music offered Occidental composers. In a letter written the year of his arrival, he ar ticulated his ideas: I feel that in the Orient lies the source of inspiration for new developments that will make our music ever more free and flexible in expression. . . . I have broken completely away from traditions of my formal training in New England, and am starting all over again with the zest of the self that I was thirty years ago. I have in my notebooks more than two thousand themes collected in the Far East, and the work I have in mind for the imme diate future will occupy me for at least four years.56 Dubbed the "musical Marco Polo,” Eichheim had embarked in 1915 on the first of five extended trips to the Far East, where he amassed one of the finest collec tions of Asian instruments in the world.

The collection is now housed at the Uni versity of California, Santa Barbara. Bliss vividly remembers how Eichheim dis played them: There were groups of wooden xylo phones, whose intervals were spaced wider and wider as one ran up the scales; miniature cymbals which, when clashed, rose in pitch; magnificent gongs with a reverberation of half a minute. These were suspended around his studio, and one had time to touch

F l.-WV

the nipple of each in turn with a soft-

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62

headed mallec, so that they sounded to gether producing a gloriously bronze sonorous chord. . . . Every detail of their house was exquisite, and it became a welcome focus for visiting artists who came to Santa Barbara.57 Two of the famous musi cians to stay at 27 Mesa Road were Maurice Ravel

Master of the Queen's Music.

Among those who taught dance were Ines de la Guerra Dibblee (1879-1963), best remembered locally for her exotic performance of the Sword Dance; Edith McCabe, a specialist in the Russian technique and a fa culty member at Santa Bar bara State Teachers Col lege; Isabel Keith Morrison, a pupil of Denishawn; Joan Williams, a student of Fokine and Tarsoff; and Maria

and Leopold Stokowski. Sto kowski toured Bali with Eichheim and conducted the premieres of many of his evocative works, including Malay Mosaic, which uti lized Javanese and Burmese motifs. On March 1, 1925, Stokowski conducted the

Kedrina (1890-1970). Ma dame Kedrina, trained by the Imperial Russian Ballet School, toured as a soloist

Philadelphia Symphony Or chestra Ensemble in the de

with the celebrated Nijinski’s ballet company prior to World War I. In 1928, she announced before a

but of Malay Mosaic at a Concert of the International

gathering at the School the formation of a resident bal-

Composers’ Guild. Two days later, Eichheim conducted its

let troupe, the Miniature Ballet Company. To mark the occasion, a contemporary account claimed chat che Santa Barbara was

Ines de. la

West Coast premiere along .. .

-Di- ’ z-’ with Arthur Bliss Conversa' tions at the Lobero Theatre.

In 1924, Bliss played the leading role of a composer in and wrote incidental music

a Dibblee, best-knoum for her dancing, abo a talented writer, Her bookofpoems, Hzdcnda.

Memories and Caravans of Thought, evoked the romance of Santa Barbara’s Californio past.

for the Drama Branch's Beg gar on Horseback, che first play performed in the new Lobero Theatre. Playing oppo site Bliss was twenty-year-old Gertrude (Trudy) Hoffmann. She was the daughter of Ralph Hoffmann, the director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, and the niece of Bernhard Hoffmann.

Bliss notes chat on June 1, 1925, he and

only city in A merica that sponsors the ballet as a dis

tinct art.”58 The following year, the Company ob served its first anniversary by participat ing in the American premiere of the bal let, Ivan Czarevich, in Los Angeles.59 Before her death at eighty in 1970, she had created and produced nearly one hundred ballets and pageants for Santa Barbara audiences.60

Trudy "were married at the Old Spanish Mission Church in Santa Barbara amid a

Photography

host of relations and friends.” Shortly thereafter. Bliss returned to England where he was eventually knighted and appointed

Although the School offered photogra phy for even a shorter period than that for music, dance, and drama, the classes rep-

63

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

resented a significant program, because those who taught—William B.Dyer(I8601931), Margaret Craig(1877'?), and Frank lin Price Knott (1854-1930)—all made memorable contributions to photography.

In the 1860s, amateur as well as commercial photog raphers (a fairly modern distinction) began to settle in Santa Barbara. By 1889, enough photographers had gathered in the region for Fred Sands to publish an ar ticle devoted exclusively to photography as part of a series assessing the progress of the local art community.

"Up to a few years ago, the products of photography were meager in value,” he wrote, "This has changed.

The photographer has awakened.”61 A decade lat

for photographs to be pictorial, or in other words artistic, they must be: pregnant with meaning and signifi cance. The study must give way to work of a wide scope, and pictures, difficult of ac complishment as they may be, pictures that tell the tales of human feelings and experiences, these must be the fruit of future endeavor, at least to a greater extent than hereto fore.64 To achieve artistic expres sion in photographic prints, a critic excontemporary plained. Dyer mastered the difficult technique of aqua tint or gum-bichromate:

er. the Catalogue, First An nual Amateur Photograph Exhibition : Santa Barbara

As the School’sfirstjulL-time Director, Frank Morley Fletcher was the keyfigure in the decision to concentrate

signaled a watershed for re gional photographers.62 As a founding member of the "Photo-Secession” in

solely on the fine arts in the curriculum. Fletcher relied

he has striven to overcome a scientific process with his artistic temperament and to leave his strong

cessionists—an avant-garde group led by Alfred Stieglitz—elevated photography to a fine art through their exhibitions and quarterly magazine. Camera Work, Stie glitz declared that their "aim is loosely to hold together those Americans devoted to pictorial photography in their endeavor to compel its recognition, not as the hand maiden of art. but as a distinctive medium

stamp of individuality on his work . . . . Mr. Dyer ... is giving much of his time to perfecting himself in the aqua-tint process.

The objection of the regular photogra pher to this difficult method, that no two prints can be made alike from the same negative, shows a lack of the power to manipulate. The possibilities of this process, however, give Mr. Dyer his greatest pleasure, for it as sures variety and a chance to express individual taste and feeling less hedged in by the limitations of photography.65

of individual expression.”63 Dyer ex plained in a series of essays that in order

Noted for his figurative studies. Dyer’s

upon his European connec tions to draw faculty mem bers of the highest caliber to the School.

1902, William Dyer al ready held an important place in the history of the photograph when he came to teach in 1920. The Se

64

NOTICIAS

works toured with the many Secessionist exhibitions here and abroad, including the final show held in 1910 at the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. Dyer, most active as a photographer during the period of the Photo-Secessionists, left Chicago for Oregon in 1908, and then around 1915 came to Pasadena where he probably met Craig, who had established a studio there as early as 1906, Less is known of Craig than Dyer, but she is of some note for having been one of the few women to pursue architectural photography at the turn of the century.

She was Chair of the Western Division of the National Women’s Federation of Pho tographers in 1915, then became the "offi cial photographer" of California Southland.

She joined Dyer at the Santa Barbara School of the Arcs in 1920.

For California Southland, she regularly illustrated articles on Santa Barbara, includ

aucochromist for the National Geograph ic Society, he authored and photo graphed "Artist Adventures on the Is land of Bali." in which he recalled: For years I was a painter of minia tures. . . . Then came the magic of aucochromes. By color photography, millions who read this magazine may glimpse the glories of Nature—God's own great studio. Like an artist’s brush, now the camera catches every tint and shade from Arizona desert or Alpine sunset to the gorgeous pano ply of Indian rajah courts and the bronze beauty of jungle maids asplash in lotus pools. So it came I laid down my brushes and took up the color plates. And from the Ganges to the Great Wall, from Pyramids to Bud dhist temples, I have wandered.67

ing one entitled, "The Rise of Santa Barba ra," which introduced the innovative City Plan for reconstruction after the 1925

The aucochrome process,68 the first practical color photography, represented at once a crucial technical advancement

earthquake;

and a daunting challenge to the Society’s photographers, for the autochromist had to gain mastery through experimentation in the field where he had to transport large, steamer cumbersome equipment in

...a style variously named—perhaps the word 'Lacin’ best expresses it, for it eminates from the Mediterranean coun tries, and is sometimes called Spanish, Italian or southern European. Whatever be the name, it is the architecture of the tile roofs and extensive plastered surfac es with concentration of ornament, deep shadow and deep reveals. It per mits of light colored walls which reflect the sunlight and cast off rather chan re tain the heat and form a fitting back ground for foliage which is so much a part of the California landscape.66 Knott, a pioneer in color photography, claimed Santa Barbara as his place of birch and residence. As an amateur explorer and

trunks full of chemicals.... His color places 69 alone weighed as much as 150 pounds Moreover, the fragile places required long exposures, had to be developed quickly on sight in a two-stage procedure inside make shift darkrooms, and then shipped in pad ded containers to the Society.

In April of 1916, the National Geo graphic published its first natural color se ries, twenty-three photographs taken by Knott accompanying the essay, "The Land of the Best.” One was a dramatical ly vivid view of Stearns Wharf, rhapsodically titled. Sunrise Setting the Teaming Heavens on Fire, which Knott had exhibit-

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

65

ZL »● Joseph Knowles,a student ofFletcher’s at the School,stands next to his mosaic mural at the Santa Barbara QirLs Club.Knowles had the highest regardfor Fletcher as an educator. ed as one of one hundred fifty aucochromes the preceding year at the Potter Hotel.

"TTie only pictures of the size, 5"x7", that have ever been projected in this country." reported the. Morning Press. 70 Knott, at the age of seventy-three, completed a remarkable 40,000-mile trek throughout the Orient in 1927, shooting terrain and people never before captured in color. He wrote of his odyssey;

as he reluctantly prepared to sail with the efforts of his photographic quest, he re called. "A heavy surf ran. To reach the ship’s boat, one had to wade out. I

In every man's dreams there is always one favorite spot, somewhere, that he hopes some day to see....it may be but the primordial urge to fight for the sheer adventure of it—to see romance

The School progressed steadily during its first five years of operation. Although funding was never in abundance, in No vember. 1922, the Carnegie Corporation of New York granted an annual $25,000 for five years to the Community Arts Associ ation, with which the School merged in January 1923. This assured the School of $8,000 annually. A summer term, begun in 1923, contributed to the increasing enroll ment. which averaged over 250 students by the beginning of the 1924 fall term.

Testimony to the School’s success and growth was the decision, in January 1924,

in strange lands. But some time in his life, the man of any imagination feels the call to far places. So it came that I went to Bali, that beautiful but littleknown island of flowers and modern Eves, lying off beaten tourist trails, east of Java.71 He traversed Bali for one month, and

wrapped my precious autochrome plates in my raincoat and held them on my head to keep them dry and waded waist-deep against incoming breakers."72

The rietcher Cra

NOTICIAS

Fletcher advanced the School’s reputa tion in the fine arts by expanding the curriculum and by attracting artists of national and international renown. He added printmaking to the program of graphic arts, a Design Department, an architectural atelier, and a Sculpture De partment. Fletcher taught the first class in printmaking—wood block printing: "a course of instruction in methods based on

Years after teaching at the School,Ed Borein was still sharing his talent and kjiowledge with others.

He is seen here in 1939 in his El Paseo studio with some young admirers.

to hire a full-time Director. Chosen was the former director of the Edinburgh Col lege of Art, Frank Morley Fletcher, a por traitist. landscape painter, and wood block artist. An old friend of Lungren's and of Albert Herter’s (the three had studied to gether in Paris), Fletcher was invited by the former to teach a summer session in 1923 and then was invited to stay on as Director at an annual salary of $5,000. As an artist-educator with an international reputation, and author of the authoritative text on wood block printing, Fletcher re flected the high aspirations of the School’s board.73 The choice also foreshadowed the School’s later direction—a sole emphasis on the fine arts, even though other subjects, especially music, attracted a good number of students.

the Japanese practice of cutting and printing in colour from wood blocks, with special application to poster design ing and printed decoration.

Through his instruction in Japanese printmaking— which he pioneered in the West—he con tributed to the development of a number of outstanding students, including Joseph Knowles (1907-1980) and Channing Peake (1910-1989).

Knowles—educator, muralist, and watercolorist-moved to Santa Barbara in 1927 to attend the School on a mainte nance scholarship. Four decades later he recalled that Fletcher: . . . was perhaps the most dominant and constructive influence of my stu dent days. Mr. Fletcher was a genteel and sensitive man, whose integrity as an artist and whose vast knowledge of the great historic traditions in the arts made a lasting impression on all those who were privileged to study with him. . . . In a sense he felt that building an art school in a small com munity in the far Western United States was a sort of pioneering adven ture, but he never underestimated the unique cosmopolitan social structure of the community. . . , The important private art collections, the unstinting private financial support of the Com munity Arts Association, including the Fine Arts School, and the determi-

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

nation to fight for the preservation of a magnificent natural environment, was all evidence of a proportionately large segment of the community that provid ed an atmosphere where creativity could fIourish75 Knowles also noted how many of his fellow students from those "halcyon days" of the 1920s would achieve success as art ists; Donal Hord, sculptor; Richmond Kel sey, painter, designer; Channing Peake, painter; Ross Dickinson painter, mural ist; Campbell Grant, author/illustrator; Phil Paradise, painter, print maker; and Anders Aldrin, painter; all were ex posed to a very fine educational experi ence at the school.76 Peake, like Knowles, received a mainte nance scholarship and acknowledged his debt to the School. As a student, Peake’s figurative drawings, reproduced in the 1929-1930 School catalogue, already dem onstrate the dynamic, lyrical draughts manship that distinguishes his mature works. In 1930, Peake journeyed to Mexi co where he assisted Diego Rivera on the frescoes for the National Palace. Traveling by ship to New York, he then enrolled at the Art Students' League in the mural painting class taught by Rico Lebrun, whom he helped in executing the mural in the Pennsylvania Station.

In 1940, Peake returned to the Santa

67 ward Warshaw in 1959, the horse ac quires a literary dimension of extravagant illusion; in the 1984 mural for the Gold Room of El Paseo Restaurant, the pro gression of mounted steeds colorfully chronicle the evolution of Californio culture77 It is worth noting that he complet ed this latter project in what had once been the studio of his former teacher at the School. Dudley Carpenter, In fact, Peake's first commission for El Paseo oc curred more than a half a century earlier when, in his first year as a student, he, along with Joe De Jong and another of his teachers. Edward Borein, created wall dec orations for the Ranchero Room.

Borein, hired by Fletcher to teach etch ing in 1926, was known for the accurate detail of his drawings, etchings, and paint ings of the American West. The largely self-taught Borein had been a cowboy in his teens in the American Southwest and had also spent some time in Mexico. He was greatly influenced by Remington and by his good friend Charles Russell and to day is considered one of the finest of the cowboy artists. Borein moved to Santa Barbara in 1921 and stayed until his death in 1945.

Barbara area, settling in the Santa Ynez Valley, where for two decades he com bined the lives of artist and horse rancher.

Two years after Borein joined the facul ty, Fletcher again increased the classes of fered in printmaking, enlisting Richmond Kelsey (1905-1987), a former student, to conduct a course in lino-prints. The School’s catalogue described it as "Linole um cuts in color, with special application to posters, illustration, book plates, and greeting cards." He taught at a number of private schools in the area, including Santa Barbara Girls School. Crane School in

Indeed many of his bold, vivid works con tain arresting images of the horse in its myriad manifestations. In Don Quixote, the fiasco secco in the Santa Barbara Public Library on which he collaborated with Ho-

Montecito. and Santa Barbara School(later Cate School) in Carpinteria, while still at tending the Santa Barbara School of the Arcs. Kelsey went on to a successful career as a printmaker, painter, and muralist. In

NOTICIAS

68

1936, he painted murals for El Paseo and two years later went to work as an art di rector for Walt Disney Studios. He later moved into commercial art.

Ross Dickinson (1903-1978), another of Fletcher’s proteges, also began to teach in 1928—general drawing, painting, and color.

He created a number of mosaic sand murals for public buildings in Santa Barbara, includ ing the mural in the Little Theatre of the School, later renamed the Alhecama Thea tre, today the home of the Ensemble Thea tre group. He later taught drawing at the Art Center School. Los Angeles, now the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

4

Design

i' *

In 1924, Fletcher hired his former col league from the Edinburgh College of Art. Charles Paine (1895-1967). to head the De sign Department. An Associate of the Royal College of Art. London, he instituted a threeyear course "to train designers for crafts and industries.” The Community Arts Associa tion annual report summarized his success as an industrial designer and teacher; In the realm of industrial design Mr. Paine’s posters and advertisements for railways, steamship companies, and manufacturers of fabrics ate outstand ing. The many students who have flocked to him at the school are keenly alive to the advantages of study with this artist, whose work is full of vitality and a quality of joyousness.^8 Prior to Paine’s arrival, a number of teachers offered a variety of classes in de sign, the most notable being industrial de signer. Kem Weber (1889-1963). He achieved national recognition as a master of the Moderne, that aesthetic movement of the 1920s and 1930s which exalted the

^5

J John FrederickMurphy taught architecture at the School. As a member ofthefirm Soule,Mur phy and Hastings, he helped design a complex of Duildingsfor the school,including what is now the Alhecama Theater.

machine through the merger of art and technology. As he wrote of the machine age, ". . . we are living today, the era of the airplane, the automobile, (the] wire less, and the countless other inventions that surround us.”79 He first established a design studio in Santa Barbara in 1919, but moved to Los Angeles two years lat er. In 1931, he became the first chairman of the Industrial Design Department of the Art Center School at a time when, in the hands of Buckminster Fuller ("The Geodesic Dome”). Norman Bel Geddes ("The Flying Wing Air Craft”), Henry Dreyfus ("The 20th Century Limited”),

69

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

wood de Forest, Jr. (1896-1949) taught landscape architecture.

In 1911, Soule moved to Santa Barba ra, establishing the architectural firm which Murphy joined four years later. A decade after that. Soule published what could be considered a manifesto of Santa Barbara architecture while announcing the results of the 1924 Better Architecture Competition:

One ofthe outstanding gardens deseed by landscape architect Lockwood de Forest,Jr., was on WrightLudington'sMontecitoestate, Val Verde.

and Raymond Loewy ("The Broadway Limited”), the industrial designer arguably assumed primacy "over the practitioner of high arc.

After World War II, he returned to Santa Barbara, where many of his later commissions were architectural. /^rchitecture and Landscape /Architecture Winsor Soule (1883-1954), John Frede rick Murphy (1887-1957), and James Os borne Craig (1888-1922)—proponents of the Spanish-Colonial Revival style chat was transforming Santa Barbara in the 1920s—were among the architecture facul ty. Ralph Stevens (1883-1958), Charles Frederick Eaton (1842-1930), and Lock-

...the city of Santa Barbara, lying be tween the ocean and the Coast Range, has always held peculiar fascination.

Bright clear sunshine, mild ocean breez es, the sparkling strand and the misty mountains, together with a delightful old-world atmosphere, the inheritance of the Spanish conquistadors, all con tribute in making an especially strong appeal to the artistic temperament.

The people of Santa Barbara them selves are taking advantage of this ap peal in the effort to develop the city along lines which will be in full accord with its old traditions and its climatic advantages. In pursuance of this idea a society has been organized under the name of Community Arts Association whose policy is to foster the Drama, Art and Architecture and to awaken in the general public a keen appreciation of all the arts.

To the efforts of this society are due in large measure many of the recent ar chitectural developments along the old Spanish lines and they were instrumen tal . . . to arouse and stimulate a great public interest in good architecture.

Of the 35 awards given in the architec tural category, 29 gave allegiance to the Spanish or Mediterranean tradition. The jury, which included Fernand Lungren, chose a residence designed by the firm of

70

NOTICIAS

Soule, Murphy and Hastings along with Craig’s El Paseo complex as two of the ten most notable examples of architecture in Santa Barbara. The jury concluded that it is greatly impressed by the unusual vi sion and idealism indicated by the Chamber of Commerce and Communi

throughout America submitted nearly 10,000 drawings.

Based on the method of the £cole des Beaux Arts in Paris, the Institute was not a teaching institution, but provided the ateliers with a program composed of problems. The students submitted solu

ty Arts Association of Santa Barbara in their effort to catch and hold for the

tions in the form of an es<^uisse(drawing) to be judged in national competitions conducted by the Institute in New York.

city the splendid architectural tradition to which it has fallen heir.81

In 1926, the problem in Class "B’’— A Small Analytique—consisted of

Initially. Soule and Craig offered classes only in the history of architecture and house planning, but in 1925, Fletcher estab lished an atelier to teach architectural de sign with Murphy as the patron. The ateli er was affiliated with the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York. Begun in 1894 as the Society of Beaux-Arts Archi

Arch,” presented with the following pa rameters; It is to be situated at the entrance to a mole or pier. The material is to be stone or marble and the architecture is to be monumental in character. TTie arch may be ornamented with bas-

tects, it reached its height 35 years later when most of the architectural schools

reliefs. tablets, or inscriptions and may be surmounted with statues or a group of moderate dimensions.82

used its program and almost 2,500 regis tered students from 44 colleges and ateliers

A winner of the competition was Jack

Val Verde estate, with landscaping byLockr woodde Forest,Jr.

SCHCX)L OF THE ARTS Gilchrist, a student in the School’s atelier and the Bulletin of the Beaux-Arts Insti tute of Design published his drawing.

The Better Architecture Competition also acknowledged the importance of land scape design by naming the twelve most outstanding gardens. Soule, Murphy and Hastings planned two and Ralph T. Ste vens designed one.

Stevens was born and raised on Tanglewood, the Montecito estate first developed by his horticulturist father, R. Kinton Ste vens(1846-1896), who, with Henry Chapman Ford, founded the Santa Barbara Horticultural Society. After Madame Gan na Walska acquired what is now known as Lotusland in 1941, the younger Stevens contributed to the development of the property until his death, planning the To piary and the Blue Gardens. The original

71

grounds of che Santa Barbara Biltmore Hotel and the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Oahu count among the younger Stevens' other accomplishments.

In 1886, R. Kinton Stevens sold part of his property to Charles Frederick Ea ton, who built the estate, Riso Riuo. Born to wealth in Providence, Rhode Island, Ea ton had lived in Europe since 1873. He studied in Paris until 1876 then toured the gardens and ruins of France and Italy. In spired by Roman ruins encrusted with vegetation, upon his return to the U.S., he created for El Encanto Hotel (designed by Soule, Murphy and Hastings) on the San ta Barbara Riviera the Italianate Pergola comprising forty hollow pillars fashioned from brick and filled with soil to support enveloping native canyon vines.83 Like Fletcher, Eaton was an advocate

Thefirst bronze castim class, 1926.Left to right are instructorArchibald Dawson and students James Tank Porter, Evelyn Bousfield,Billie McQregor,Joe De Tong,Donal Hord,Edward Bittel, and Mabel Fairfax Karl. U.C. Santa Barbara Special Collections.

72

NOTICIAS

of the Arts and Crafts movement.84 Eaton outlined in an article written by Gustav Stickley for The Craftsman, his theory of landscape gardening, "Nature under con trol, . , . There must not be too much sky, or too much ocean—too much, for that matter—of any one element."85 Lockwood de Forest, Jr., began his ca reer working with Ralph T. Stevens at Casa del Herrero, the estate developed by George F. Steedman. Aware of the grow ing interest in gardening, de Forest began publishing, with a $25.00 contribution from the Plans and Planting Committee of the Community Arts Association, The Santa Barbara Qardener,at a time when no California newspaper or magazine regular ly covered gardening.

He was the son of Lockwood de Forest, Sr., the landscape painter and interior deco rator. De Forest, Jr., considered avantgarde for his innovative abstract designs which transformed the European tradition of gardening, remains best known for his thirty years of effort on Val Verde, the es tate of Wright Ludington, his friend since their days together at the Thacher School in Ojai. They helped establish the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, in front of which today is located the Lockwood de Forest, Jr. Memorial.

Sculpture In the fall of 1926, Fletcher brought Ar chibald ■ Dawson (1894-1938) from the Glasgow School of Art to Santa Barbara for one term to inaugurate a Department of Sculpture. With Dawson’s arrival, the School of the Arts became the only Ameri can institution to offer a student of sculp ture the opportunity to work in clay, wood, and stone, as well as in bronze. De scribing his stature at the time, the Art Di gest said, "No sculptor today is producing

James TanhPort&atworh,2926. Hewouldgo on to become an important memberofthe art com munity in San Diego. U.C. Santa Barbara Spe cial Collections.

Elizabeth?4ason stands next to her designfor the doorway to the School’s new sculpture building.

Mason was thefirst curator ofthe Santa Barbara Historical Society. U.C. Santa Barbara Special Collections.

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

more beautiful nor more personal work in bronze.”86 The announcement of Daw son’s course in bronze casting read, It will include the preparation of moulds; the construction of the oven required for burning the wax out of the mould before pouring the metal; the heating and pouring of the metal; the treatment of the bronze after casting; chasing; the treatment of the surfaces to produce qualities of "patina.”

Following Dawson’s return to Scot land, Fletcher also was largely responsible for engaging Amory C. Simons (18661959) to teach modeling and bronze cast ing. A student of Rodin in Paris, he moved to California in the 1920s, eventually set tling in Santa Barbara where he lived until his death at the age of ninety-three. The move brought the School national atten tion. The Art Digest noted in February 1927, "An experiment unique in the art history of the United States has been suc cessfully accomplished this year at the School of the Arts of Santa Barbara, Cali fornia. where the casting of sculpture in bronze by the sculptor himself is taught as ”87 an essential part of his training.

He was well-known for his figures of animals, especially works of horses. "Si mon’s horses are thrilling,” exclaimed Art News, "horses galloping to a fire, horses prancing in the manner of the 'Haute £cole,' horses bearing American, French and Italian soldiers, . . . horses trotting, horses suffering under the assaults of a blizzard.”88 His works in bronze were in cluded in two seminal exhibitions; Con temporary American Sculpture held at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor.

1929, and 100 Years of California Sculpture, Oakland Museum. 1982.

Among Dawson's students was Donal

73

Hord (1902-1966). Hord, considered San Diego's "premier sculptor” and one of America’s leading sculptors during his life time. studied ciri perdue (lost wax) on a tuition scholarship under both Dawson and Simons. He recounted in a 1958 inter view how he came to the School with only $75.00 to last the entire term. "I got awfully tired of beans.”89 That first se mester he learned from Dawson the art of fine finishing. Years later Hord recalled how Dawson would say of a work he thought completed, "It’s a good start, lad, now go ahead and finish it.”90 He modeled and cast under Dawson’s di rection, El Cacique (The Indian Chief), which was later exhibited with works by Simons in 1929 at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. San Francisco. This work set the stage for a career distinguished by dramatic, stylized figures, inspired by pre-Columbian and Asian traditions in stone and woods of exquisite finish.

In 1928, he received the first of three Gould Memorial Travel Scholarships, funded by Clara S. Gould of Montecito, noted for her financial assistance to stu dents of art and music. Her generosity permitted Hord to study in Mexico, the Pennsylvania Academy, and the Beaux Arts Institute in New York. In 1930, he returned to San Diego. He wrote of Cali fornia in the catalogue for Americans igq.2., an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art. New York: The artist in this, the extreme south western. corner of the United States lives in an environment that is con cerned less with people and an industri alized landscape than with the strong light beating on ancient, granite, and sparsely watered hills.91 James Tank Porter (1883-1962), an-

NOTICIAS

74

ocher young student of Dawson who be came a leader of the San Diego artists' com munity in the 1930s, graduated from Pomo na College in 1914, after which he attended the Art Students’ League. He was a found ing member and president of the Contempo rary Artists of San Diego, the first profes sional artists’ group in San Diego. In 1930 Porter as well as Hord participated in that group’s first annual exhibition at the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego. As a sculptor, Porter was known best for his portrait busts. Eventually he left the world of art for business, acquiring ownership of the Brown Manufacturing Company where he invent ed the rotating lawn sprinkler.

Dawson’s student, Joe De Yong (18941975)—sculptor and painter of the Westled an uncommon life. He grew up among the Cherokees in the Indian Territory where he learned crick roping from Will Rogers and rode for wages. He wrote: For me, Indian Territory was a magicland where cowboys, Indians, long horned cattle, roundups, and my fa ther’s frequent deer-hunting crips in a certain wild region called "the Osage Hill,” combined to create a colorfullypatterned patchwork of characters and incidents chat peopled my earliest re membered dreams—whether asleep or awake!92 De Yong made Westerns with Tom Mix, riding "fast-and-furious, up and down hills in groups, while chasing out laws and rescuing the sheriff’s daughter, day. after day. after day!” Spinal meningi tis left him totally deaf at nineteen. He mastered the Indians’ sign language and turned to drawing and painting during his convalescence.93 Beginning in 1916, he worked for the next decade in the Montana log cabin studio of his mentor, Charles

Russell, who he said taught him to con ceive of "things in the round’’ and who introduced him to Ed Borein. In 1926, upon Borein’s advice, De Yong came to Santa Barbara to attend Dawson’s bronze casting class. After Russell’s death, De Yong decided to stay, having "fallen in love with the town and sur 94 rounding country at first sight.

Eventually, he joined the Rancheros Visicadores, a fraternal men’s riding club, leading to his role as "an artistic trouble shooter—sagebrush style,” to use his words, on many Westerns for Cecil B. DeMille, among them Northwest Mount ed Police, staring Gary Cooper. De Yong summed up his colorful life, I like better than anything else to use a rope. But, outside of chat I draw, model, paint, etch, and cry to write a little. . . . And, of chose arcs, I like best whatever it is I’m working on at the moment. I’ve done a few pictures that pleased me—pictures that I’d like to have kept. I’ve made, at least, one model group that turned out as I visu alized it, . . . My first magazine cover was for Literary Digest when I was 22 years old. Since then I’ve done ocher covers for ocher magazines.95 Elizabeth Mason (1880-1953) and George Stanley (1903-1973) also studied modeling and bronze casting. Mason, a maintenance scholarship student, was a founding officer and the first curator of the Santa Barbara Historical Society. She designed many bronze plaques in Santa Barbara, including the one dedicated to David Gray for the gift of the Cabrillo Pavilion to the people of Santa Barbara and another over the fireplace in the Uni versity Club, commissioned by Mrs. Gould. Among her ocher projects was

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After the igz^ earthquake, an elaborate campus was plannedfor the School. Onlyafewoftheproposed buildings were ever constructed.

the Tennis Trophy for Scripps College.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Oscar, perhaps the most fa mous trophy in the world, was created by Stanley in collaboration with the art direc

the School as an important, integral part of the community. Students at the School could receive credit at Santa Barbara State

tor Cedric Gibbons in 1927. presumably while Stanley was working under Simons, for that was the year in which Stanley re ceived a maintenance scholarship to pur sue bronze casting at the School. Stanley modeled the figure after a preliminary idea that Gibbons sketched, on a tablecloth, at

Teachers College for School courses. The School's faculty and students took part in community activities, including Old Span ish Days Fiesta, the city’s largest civic cel ebration, begun in 1924.

The spring of 1925 saw the first major exhibition of students’ work. Over 300

the dinner party organized to determine what kind of award should be presented by the Academy. Considered "unique and avant- garde for the 1920s,"96 it prefig ured the streamlined Moderne favored by Weber and others in the 1930s. After re turning to Los Angeles, Stanley sculpted the granite figures symbolizing the Muse of Music. Dance and Drama at the Holly wood Bowl and the bas-reliefs on the fa cade of Bullocks Wilshire, among other commissions.

While building a fine, professional art school, efforts were also made to establish

pieces were shown and over 1200 Santa Barbarans attended. Exhibitions, Saturday classes for children, and summer school classes geared for the non-professional, at tested to the efforts to make the School approachable by all.

Lungren,in a talk given in January 1922, laid out his view of the School’s role: Our school is a community school, not a settlement work. . . . Although the school cannot have the same direct

76

NOTICIAS

block bounded by Canon Perdido, Carrillo, Santa Barbara, and Garden streets, designed by Soule, Murphy and Hastings. By early 1927, the complex consisted of nine buildings with a sculp ture studio added in 1928. A fortuitous re sult of the earthquake was the extension of the Carnegie grant through 1930 with an additional emergency grant of $25,000.

Attendance for the summer and fall ses

Uwisht Bridge,in costumefor one ofAlbert Herter's meatricalproductions. Knoumfor his por traits, Bridge was a student ofHerter's at the An Students'league in New York, Photograph by Edwin and Carolyn Gledhill. emotional appeal to individuals as do the players or the orchestra, [referring to branches of the Community Arts Asso ciation) it can become the source of those branches, supplying newly discovered and developed talent toward the larger fulfillment. I have lived in Santa Barbara

sions of 1925 fell to just above 200 pupils, but soon recovered to previous levels.

The School enjoyed its greatest suc cess from 1926 through 1929. Atten dance remained fairly stable as did the 50-50 ratio between "serious” students and those attending part-time. The vast majority of the former came from out side Santa Barbara and many took ad vantage of the School’s maintenance scholarships. The scholarships included tuition for both regular and summer Selfportrait by John Qamble. Qamble was on the board ofthe School and served as president in the early i^os. Thepainting is in the collection ofthe SantaBarbara Historical Society.

for a number of years and I have never known such activity, spiritually, men tally and artistically - a veritable Renais sance. Santa Barbara is awakening to the realization, with thousands of other

L

communities, that material development alone does not satisfy.97 The devastating earthquake that struck Santa Barbara on June 29. 1925, accelerated a physical expansion of the School chat was already in the works. Among the many buildings that fell victim to the quake was the School’s Dominguez adobe and plans now moved forward to expand the school’s physical plant.

The 1925 summer school session was held at Roosevelt School as construction proceeded on a complex of buildings in the

fv>

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77

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS school terms, as well as a monthly stipend to defray housing and other costs. The program proved highly successful and in 1929, arrangements were made with the University of Mexico in Mexico City to set up a scholarship exchange program.

Available to students in all fields were yearly scholarships and tuition waivers.

Other financial aid included a School store, begun in 1926, where materials were sold to students for less than retail, and com mission work arranged through the School.

The annual report for the 1925-26 term lists commissions for posters, greeting cards, a sports trophy, even a bird bath, TTe School sponsored a number of competitions; La Cumbre Country Club helped sponsor a poster contest with cash prizes in late 1925 and a Hobby Fair was held in 1926. In 1927, events included poster contests, a competition for film ti tles, and an architectural drawing compe tition. These competitions not only in creased community participation with School members and fostered good will, but afforded the School a venue to select talent suitable for enrollment in the School.

In 1928, a School faculty display was installed in the corridors of Santa Barbara High School. Represented in this effort to enhance the community’s appreciation of art were faculty members William Otte (1871-1957), Lungren, Cooper, Borein, and Director Fletcher.

The School sponsored a most success ful, nationwide poster competition in April 1928, with the city of Santa Barbara as the theme. Over one thousand flyers were sent to art schools, high schools, and libraries across the nation. Announce ments appeared both in local newspapers and national art magazines. Forty-four posters from eleven states were ultimately received and placed on display. The judges

for the competition were Albert Herter, De Witt Parshall, and Dwight Bridge.

First prize, a choice of a School tuition scholarship and $100.00 or $200.00 cash went to Betty Shropshire, a student at the San Diego Academy of Fine Arts, who used the cash to open a studio in San Die go,. Betty Shropshire Stoner (1906-1993) went on to a successful career as a graphic artist, painter, and wood block printer.

If. . y

Belmore Btxmme at work.in his studio. His resignation as Director in 1934 began thefinalphase ofSchool operations.

The second-prize winner received a tui tion scholarship.

The School had reincorporated as a separate entity in October 1928, although the majority of the stock was held by the Community Arts Association in exchange for real property. The School achieved its high-water mark at the end of the 1929 summer session. The faculty was of the highest quality; Amory C. Simons had re cently received the Order of the Palms from the French government. New facul ty members included John Gamble and Belmore Brown.

John Gamble played a key role in the

78

NOTICIAS

r' ft'-

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A landscape class tak^ advantage ofthe view overlooking Leadbetter Beach, ca. 193 o. last years of the School. He began his asso ciation with the School in 1929, teaching advanced landscape painting and sketching with Belmore Browne. Gamble also served as Board President for a number of years.

Gamble first came to California in 1886 to study at the California School of Design in San Francisco under the distinguished col orist Emil Carlson, He headed to France in

his California landscapes of wildflowers.

For many years he served as color consul tant for the city’s Architectural Board of Review, playing an especially important role during the rebuilding of the city after the 1925 earthquake. He served on the committee to restore the damaged mission and also designed the Spanish village in terior of the Arlington Theatre.

Color is also the key element in Gam

1890, enrolling at the Academies Julian and Colarossi, where he pursued portrait and figure studies before returning to San Fran cisco three years later. Driven from the city by the 1906 earthquake and fire, he arrived in Santa Barbara on Christmas Eve for a

ble's paintings. Whereas cultivated gar dens attracted Colin Campbell Cooper, the resplendent wildflowers of nature drew Gamble. He often went in search of them

short stay en route to Los Angeles. Seduced

by Santa Barbara’s beauty, he remained for fifty-one years.

joyous patterns of color enchanted Gam

Here he built a national reputation for

with Lungren, although the latter seldom made sketches of them. In contrast, the ble. "My theory is that nature is one thing and design and pattern another. I love col-

79

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS or more than I do form so I paint the wildflowers as a pattern, then paint the land scape as a frame to hold the design of the flowers in the canvas.”98

support for pure landscape painting. Unlike Carl Oscar Borg’s and Colin Campbell Cooper’s impassioned resistance. Gamble responded with indifferent resignation.

Gamble exhibited his first paintings of wildflowers at the Bohemian Club. San

The Final Phase

Franciscans, never having seen the blaze of vibrating color produced by such fields, at first denounced his startling color as un natural. referring to his paintings as ". . . prairie fires. There is nothing like this in nature. One contemporary critic de scribed his colors in a canvas depicting a hillside covered in green grass and mustard as "arsenical green and howling yellow.”

Another wrote, "Admirers of hysterical art will prostrate themselves before this picture.”99 Soon critics gave barbed ap proval and then acclaim to his efforts, with Gamble's paintings largely credited with starting the rage of sojourning to the country in the springtime to view the wildflowers. In 1911. the influential Los Angeles critic Antony Anderson wrote: His color is brilliant, beautiful, arrest ing. at times so pure that it inclines to crudity. Yet it is so fresh, so joyous, so evidently the spontaneous expression of a lover of color for its own sake that he would be indeed a carping critic who found serious fault with it.190 Gamble’s critical and commercial suc cess continued to grow until he became one of Santa Barbara’s best-known artists during the 1920s.

The Great Depression ended the gener ous private patronage enjoyed by Gamble and the other artists connected with the School. Moreover, modernist theories to gether with the federal New Deal policy of promoting regionalist works of social real ism through its publicly funded work pro jects further eroded what remained of the

In the spring of 1930, Frank Morley Fletcher resigned as Director, as did Charles Paine as head of the Design De partment. The Board selected Belmore Browne as Director.

Born on Staten Island, New York, he trained with William Chase and Carroll Beckwith and studied for a time in Paris.

He was best known for his paintings of the North American wilderness and for his depictions of animal life. A great outdoorsman, he had hiked the Canadian Rockies and climbed Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America. He painted several backdrops for the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. He also executed backgrounds for the Ameri can Museum of Natural History in New York City and. shortly before his death, completed a commission at the Boston Museum of Science.

Browne became director at a difficult time. In the latter half of the 1920s, the School had run annual deficits anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000. These had been made up through tuition, the annual Carnegie grant, from contributions, and from the occasional loan. The Carnegie grant ran out in 1930 and was not re newed. The onset of the Great Depres sion began to dry up contributions and reduced student enrollment, which cut tuition income. The 1928-9 session had an enrollment of 169 students; this had fallen to 90 students for the 1931-2 ses sion.

The School could no longer afford to issue yearly catalogues with generous ex-

80

amples of student and faculty work, thus losing a valuable promotional tool. As the Depression deepened, prospective students entered the workplace to help their strug gling families instead of entering the School, which was less able to offer finan cial aid.

The School had reached desperate fi nancial straits by the end of the 1931-32 session. Faculty taught for the last two months without pay. A proposal to the Ju lius Rosenwald Fund for grant money failed, as did an appeal by Board President John Gamble to the local community for contributions.

No catalogue was issued for the 1933-4 term and Director Browne resigned in June 1934. Faculty member Brett Moore (19041950) offered to oversee operation of the School, including janitorial work and groundskeeping. for $100.00 a month. Op erations were suspended for the 1933-34 school year then, with Moore Director, the School re-opened in February, 1935.

Moore drew upon his ex periences as a working ranch hand in the 1920s for his au thentic paintings and etch ings of cowboy life. A gradu ate of the Arc Institute of Chicago, he arrived in Santa Bar

NOTICIAS

ber of notable talents. Amory Simons re mained as head of the Sculpture Depart ment. Edith Catlin Phelps (1874-1961) taught still life painting. She had studied at the Academic Julian and was best known for her portraiture. Esther Julian (1893-1979) caught design and a number of children’s classes, while Director Moore taught landscape painting, portrai ture, and life drawing. The School held together for a few years under very diffi cult circumstances, until closing for good in 1938.

The Santa Barbara School of the Arts closed over sixty-five years ago. but its legacy has passed down through the gen erations. The School was reincarnated al most three decades after its closing when former students Joseph Knowles and Douglass Parshall joined Ray Strong (b.

1905), James Armstrong (b. 1937), and John Gorham (1910-1985) to establish the Santa Barbara Arc Institute (1967-1975), which became af filiated with Brooks Institute of Photography. Its goal, as Strong has explained, was to revive the tradition of "drawing and discipline and dedication to the real world" once upheld by the Santa Barbara School of the Arcs.102

bara in 1930 to do landscape painting.

He became a close friend of Lungren; Moore and his wife even lived with Lun

Today, another generation of art ists, such as Larry and John Iwerks, who studied at the Institute and now teach in

gren shortly before the latter's death.

Santa Barbara, continue to uphold that legacy of "discipline and dedication” nur tured over six decades ago at the Santa Barbara School of the Arcs.

As the last Director, Moore operated the School on a shoestring. Still, the greatly reduced faculty contained a num¬

81

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

5anta Barbara 5chool of the hvts Tacully List I920-I934.

(Note; Due to the lack of a School catalogue after the 1933-34 session, the faculty list only goes through Spring 1934.)

FINE ARTS

Moore. Brett F.

Ayles, Hartwell Bagdatopoulus, W.S. Bittcl, Edward

Murphy,John Frederick Murphy, Marjorie C. Paine, Charles Parshall. De Witt

Bordrero, James Borein, Edward Borg, Carl Oscar Bousfield, Evelyn Bridge, Dwight Broad, Cyril Browne, Belmore Burkhardt, Selma Carpenter, Dudley S. Carpenter, Margaret Chard. John Codman, Ruth Cooper. Colin Campbell Craig, James Osborne Croswcll, Mary E. Dawson, Archibald De S, Litchfield. Virginia de Forest, Lockwood Jr. Dickinson. Daisy Dickinson. Ross Eaton. Charles Frederick Edwards. Stanley Fish. Isabel Morton Fletcher, Frank Motley Gamble.John Griffith. Harriet Halliday, H, Hastings. Elsie Hebert, Marian Hcrtcr, Albert ingerson, Frank Julian. Esther I. Kelsey. Richmond I. Lakey. Marshall Lungren. Fernand Mason, Elizabeth Mead, Frank Mitchell, W.R.

LANGUAGES: FRENCH Clerbois, Leon Diebold, Henriectc

Parshail, Douglass Parshall. Lisettc

Lange, Stephanie Muller, Louise Sawtelle, Mrs.

Phelps. Edith Catlin Reyes. Nicola Seegert, Frederick F, Seegert, Helen M. Simons. Amory C. Soule. Winsor

LANGUAGES: SPANISH de la Guerra. Delfina Dibblee. Ines Gower. Frances

Stevens. Ralph T. Struthers. Irene Weber, Kcm Weidman, Herald

MILLINERY Lange, Stephanie

Wesselhocft. Mary F. Wyman. W. M. DANCE Dibblee. Ines Graham. Georgia Kedrina. Maria McCabe. Edith Morrison, Isabel Keith Sias. Elizabeth Williams, Joan DRAMA Field, Salisbury Fletcher, Maud Motley Hall, Wilbur Livingston. Marie Bur roughs Mapes, Victor Morgan, Richard Pichel, Irving Wentworth. Marion Craig Wilbur. Florence Wilkes, Willamcnc Wolfe, Ian

MUSIC Allen, Oella Thompson Bayliss. Eugene Bliss, Arthur Borg, Madeline Brainard, Harry Challiss, Raymond Clerbois, Caro Clerbois, Dyna Clerbois, Georges Clerbois, Roger Comstock, Carol T. Contarini, Benjamin Courtney, Emma N, Dominguez, Antonio Donze. Clarence Dunshee. Caroline Kel logg Edwards. A. C. Ellison. Margaret Farwcll. Arthur Fernaid. Rorence Frisbie, Charles Fritsch. Rudolf Goodfield, Helen

Grcgson, Harold Johnson. Eleanor Kaplun. Harry Kaplun. Grace Lamson, Grace Lyans. Florence McFadden, Hamilton Mosher. Raymond Normingcon. G.H. Palliser. Esther Palmer, Imogen Avis Pactison. Ann Pattison. Irene Pederson. Elida Persinger. Louis Ring. Lyle R. Soundy. Ethel Stevenson. Frederick Thayer. Lillian Aldrich Van dcr Voort, Antoni Waldron, Annie G. Wheeler, Grace

PHOTOGRAPHY Craig. Margaret Dyer, William Knott. Franklin Price

POETRY Bacon. Leonard Redington. Sarah Wentworth, Marion Craig

SHORT STORY WRITING Sajous, Edward

i>)OTe:5 1. L. Wilson, "Santa Barbara's Artist Colony,” The American Magazine of Art. December 1921. p411ff.

2. Quoted in S. H. Rouse, "Fernand Lungren, local artist, one of many who painted turn-of-century Western scenery." Santa Barbara News-Press, August 30.1981, 3. Neuerberg, N.. An Artist Records the California MissioTis, 1989. p35.

4. Gerdts, W.. Art Across America, Two Centuries of Regional Painting lyiO'i^zo, v.3, 1990, p295.

5. Copy of a letter written to George W.Stevens, Director of the Toledo Museum of Art. 1911. collection of the Santa Barbara Public Library.

6. Lungren. F.. SomeNotes on His Life, 1933. pl5.

7. Lungren, F., copy of a letter in typescript. "Lone Pine. Inyo County, January 15.” collection of the Santa Barbara Public library.

8. Lungren. R.SomeNotesonHislJfe. 1933. p37.

9. In Fernand Lungren, single artist file, collection of the library of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

NOTICIAS

82

10. Lungren. F., "Lone Pine. Inyo County. January 15."

11. L. Paulding quoting an interview by T. Parkhurst with Lungren. "Fernand Lungren Gone from this Scene..." Morning Press (Santa Bar bara), November 25.1932.

12. Lungren, F., QoingintoDeathValley, typescript, n.d., p3, collection of the Santa Barbara His torical Society, 13. Last Will and Testament ofFernand Lungren, p2, filed November 17. 1932. Today the paintings arc in the collection of the University Art Mu seum. University of California, Santa Barbara.

14. Cooper. C., Exhibit ofPaintingsby FernandLungrtn, i8$y-ipj2, County National Bank and Trust Company, n.d., unpaged.

15. The Santa Barbara School ofthe Arts, n.d. This brochure was apparently produced shortly be fore the School opened in 1920.

16. Fink, L.. American Art at the Nineteenth Century ParisSalons, 1990. p313ff.

17. Ibid.. p311.

18. Quoted in L, Paulding, "Little Drawing Remin der of Career's Start,” Santa Barbara NewsPress,]dy 11, 1943.

19. Ibid.

20. Gerdts, W., et al.. Tonalism an American Expe rience, 1982. p5ff.

21. Harrison, B.. Landscape Painting, 1909, p56.

22. Parshall. De Witt, notes, December 23. 1913, collection of the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

23. Douglass Parshall. interview with Lydie Patchen, 1982, Santa Barbara Museum of Art. 24. No author, "Carl Oscar Borg.” Noticias Sum mer 1965. p7-8.

25. Quoted by Helen Laird from a letter from Charles A. Briant to Borg. CarlOscarBorgA Niche in Time, 1990, p57.

26, Grauer. M.. "Carl Oscar Borg’s Niche in Ameri can Art." Carl Oscar Borg A Niche in Time, 1990. p28.

27. Laird, H., Carl Oscar Borg California Images, 1990.pl.

28, Laird, H.. Carl Oscar Borg and the Magic Pegion, 1986. p29.

29. Ibid.. p32.

30. Letter of P. A. Hcarst addressed to Borg, dated August 20, 1909. in the collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Society.

31. "Carl Oscar Borg," L'Art et les Artistes. 1913, p270, 32. "Carl Oscar Borg." Noticias. Summer 1965. pl9.

33. Ibid. pl8.

34. Cooper. C.. unsigned letter in typescript.[l933], in the collection of the Santa Barbara Histori cal Society.

35. The unpublished manuscript is in the collection

of Sherrill Henderson, Cooper’s grandniece.

36. Hansen, J., CoUn Campbell Cooper, 1981. un paged, quoted from C. Cooper. ''Skyscrapers and How to Build Them in Paint." pl08. n.d., copyright S. Henderson.

37. Cooper. C., unsigned letter in typescript, [1933], in the collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Society.

38. Cooper, C.. Autobiographical Notes, typescript, unsigned, n.d.. in the collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Society.

39. Cooper, C., Artist’s Statement, typescript, un signed. November 1933, in the collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Society.

40. "Dudley Carpenter Continues to Be Major Ar tistic Influence Here." Santa Barbara NewsPress, August 21. 1951.

41. Ibid.

42. The complex was razed in 1967 after fire heavi ly damaged it the year before. Today it is the site of Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden, See Walker Tompkins, "El Mirasol Hotel," Santa BarbaraTVeivs-Press, December 21, 1975.

43. Hcrter. A.. "The Value of 'Clean’ Color in Dec oration and Its Effect Upon the Emotion," The Craftsman, May 1916, pl26.

44. In the collection of the Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum. Michigan.

45. Matson, E.. "A Revival of Hand-Woven Tex tiles, the Work of the Herter Looms, House Beautiful, December 1909, pl6.

46. Moire. N.. Painting and Sculpture in Los An geles, igoo-ig^.^. 1980. p36.

47. Sears, U., "The Herter Murals in Los Angeles," California Arts and Airchitecture, March 1929, p38.

48. Memorial Exhibit ofthe Paintirgs ofAlbert and Adele Herter, Santa Barbara Museum of Art. 1951.

49. Alice de Creeft, interview with Martha Shiffman, 1981, Santa Barbara Museum of Art. 50. "Story of the Community Players." program for the play Emperatriz. Community Arts As sociation Drama Branch, 1930.

51. Myrick, D., Montecito and Santa Barbara Vol ume II, The Days of the Qreat Estates. 1991, p364.

52. Hastings, C., "Our Art School," California Southend, November 1922, plO. 53. Bliss, A.. California Southla^. January 1925. pl4.

54. Bliss, A..As I Remember. 1970. p76.

55. Ibid.. p79, 56. Hsu. D.. The Henry Eichheim Collection ofOrien tal Instruments. 1984. plO. 57. Bliss, A., A^s ippnember, p80.

58. Quoted in H. Kleine, "Madame Maria Kedri na," Noticias, Fall 1984, p46, 59. Ibid.. p41ff.

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS 60. "The Artistry of Ballet.” Santa Barbara Neu>sPrtss, March 9.1975, 61. Quoted in S. H. Rouse. "Olden Days: 1. N. Cook Was Leading Photographer." Santa BarbaraNews-Press.]nnc 25. 1967.

62. Gloria Martin, in the course of her research on the Santa Barbara School of the Arts, discov ered that Dyer, Craig, and Knott taught pho tography and learned of the 1899 Catalogue, First Annual Amateur Photograph Exhibition : Santa Barbara. This information was included in the introduction, "A Brief History," to the exhibition catalogue. The Santa Barbara Con nection: Contemporary Photography, Santa Bar bara Museum of Art. 1994, Note that Marga ret Craig is incorrectly identified as Alice Craig, The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is planning an upcoming exhibit on early Santa Barbara photographers.

63. Doty. R,. P/io£o-Seces5Ton. 1960, p28.

64. Dyer. W., "Chicago Salon." Camera Notes.

1900,(reprinted 1975). p71.

65. Clarkson, R.. "The Photographs of William B. Dyer.” Brush and Pencil. October 1899, p23ff.

66. Nickerson, H. C.. "The Rise of Santa Barbara.”

California Southland, August 1925, pll.

67. Knott. F., "Artist Adventures on the Island of Bali,” National Qeographic Magazine, March 1928. p326.

68. The Lumierc Brothers announced the process in France in 1907 and Alfred Scieglitz introduced it to America later the same year at the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession in New York City.

69. Priit, V,. "National Geographic and Color Pho tography,” unpublished manuscript for the Graduate School of Syracuse University, 1977, p49. Quoted inj. Livingston, Odyssey:The Art of Photography at National (geographic, 1988, p28.

70. Morning Press (Santa Barbara), February 27.

1915, p2.

71. Knott, F,. "Artist Adventures on the Island of Bali,"p326.

72. Ibid., p347.

73. Fletcher. F. M.. WoodblockPrinting:A Descrip tion of the Craft of Woodcutting and CoUmr Printing Based on the Japanese Practice. 1916.

74. The Santa Barbara School of the Arts. Prospectus:igz^-z^, unpaged.

75. Knowles, J., "Santa Barbara's Historic Link to Color Wood Block Printing," Noticias, Win ter 1970, unpaged.

76. Ibid.

77. The mural is no longer in situ. It is now in the

83 collection of the Santa Barbara County Arcs Commission which is presently preparing it for rcinstallacion elsewhere.

78, Auttivities ofthe Community Arts Aissociation of Santa Barbara,ipzS-ipzp, unpaged.

79. Gcbhard, D. and von Breton, H., Kem Weber, 1969. p47.

80. Ibid., p26ff.

81. Soule, W,. "Santa Barbara Architecture," The Architect and Engineer. 1924, p52ff.

82. "Official Notification of Awards." TheBuUetin ofthe Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, Septem ber 1926, p3.

83. Whiting, E,, "The Italian Pergola at El Encanto," California Southland,}u\y 1925, pll.

84. See P. deck. "Arcs and Crafts in Santa Barba ra; A Talc of Two Studios," Noticias, Winter 1992.

85. Stickley. G.. "Nature and Arc in California."

The Craftsman. July 1904. p378.

86. "Press Comments on Bronze Casting in the School of the Arts." reprint of an article in Art Digest, February 1. 1927, Box 691, Santa Bar bara School of the Arcs Archive, Special Col lections. University of California. Santa Bar bara.

87. Ibid.

88. ArtNews. February 22. 1922, p6.

89. Ellsberg, H., "Donal Hord; Interpreter of the Southwest." American Art Peview, December 1977, pl30, 90. Ibid.. p80.

91. Hord, D., Americans 1942, p67.

92. De Yong, J., "I, Mine and Me," Noticias, Au tumn 1963, pi.

93. Ibid., p3ff.

94. Ibid.. p7.

95. De Yong, J.. "Friend Will", 1935?, unpaged.

96. Moure, N., Painting and Sculpture in Los Angeles.igoo-ig^.^, 1980, pl6.

97. Lungren delivered the speech on January 19.

1922, Text may be found in Box 689, Santa Barbara School of the Arcs Archive, Special Collections, University of California. Santa Barbara.

98. Paulding, L.. "Noted Artist Active at 79: Gam ble Flowerscapcs Riled Critics at First." Santa Barbara News-Press, February 7. 1943.

99. Ibid.

100. Anderson, A.. "Art and Artists.” Los Angeles Sunday Times, February 12, 1911.

101. Kennedy, M., "Bclmore Browne and Alaska,” Alaskajoumal, Spring 1973, pl04, 102. Artist's interview with Gloria Martin, 1991.

SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOARD OF TRUSTEES Richard Glenn Jo Beth Van Gelderen Lani Meanley Collins Jean Goodrich Warren Miller

President . . First Vice President Second Vice President Secretary Treasurer

Foster Campbell Barbara Cleveland

C. Seybert Kinsell Thad MacMillan

George E- Brakes Neal Graffy Lawrence Hammett

Jane Mueller John Pitman Ruth Scollin

John W. Hunt

Susan Simpson Mary Thorson George M. Anderjack, Executive Director LIFE MEMBERS

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CONTENTS Pg.45: School of the Arts