Part of Centennial Celebration : Paintings Offer Artful Look at Old Pasadena

A look into Pasadena’s past is provided in an exhibit of 24 oils and watercolors by early area artists now on display at the Huntington Library in San Marino.

The exhibit, offered in conjunction with Pasadena’s centennial celebration, is made up of paintings gathered by the Huntington’s assistant curator of American art, Susan Walther, during a yearlong search that took her to art dealer showrooms, private clubs and the basement of the Pasadena Public Library.

Many of the works, which are on loan to the Huntington, are landscapes and architectural subjects produced between the 1890s and the 1930s that reflect the relationship between the city and the mountains. Other paintings reflect the cultural styles of the time.

Among the artists are Marion Wachtel, Edgar Payne and Alson Clark of the impressionist “Eucalyptus School,” who specialized in landscape imagery; Jean Mannheim and Nick Brigante, Arroyo Seco artists; and Robert Graham, a New Yorker who was able to capture the restful quality of the Craftsman style of architecture in his painting, “Young Girl Reading.”

The top photo is an undated landscape by Wachtel. At right is Mannheim’s “The Lonely Tea Party” painted in 1916.

The exhibit in the Virginia Steele Scott Gallery at the Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, is open free to the public from 1 to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays through June 22.