From the San Diego Arts Community...

The Christmas holiday season’s color is reflected figuratively if not literally in art exhibits throughout the city during December.

San Diego Museum of Art’s Baldwin M. Baldwin Collection of Toulouse-Lautrec posters, prints and drawings is an elegant installation offering a taste of turn-of-the-century Parisian night life. It runs through Jan. 1.

A rare opportunity to see African art in San Diego continues through next Friday at the Mesa College Art Gallery with the show, “Values Made Visual,” a selection of masks and other sculptural works from the collection of Robert and Patricia Berg of San Diego.

Tonight, the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art opens a retrospective exhibition of abstract Expressionist painter Joan Mitchell. The artist has lived in France for 20 years, leading the New York Times to describe the best of her works as “combining American pluck with the casual assuredness of French painting.”

The exhibition, organized by the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, includes paintings from the early 1950s to the present. This is the only Southern California stop on its national tour.

Also at the La Jolla Museum is a show of photographs, steel sculptures and a large-scale outdoor piece by Mac Adams, a British artist living in New York. Shadows and reflections prevail in his work, including his color photographs, in which household items reflect scenes of interpersonal tension. Both shows continue through Jan. 29.

The Museum of Photographic Arts celebrates the centennial of National Geographic with “Odyssey,” a touring exhibition that focuses on the aesthetic qualities of 100 years of photographs acquired by the magazine. The only West Coast showing of the exhibit, which includes 200 of the original 289 photographs, continues through Jan. 15.

Opportunities to see and buy the work of local artists abound this holiday season:

The recently published book, “San Diego Artists,” comes alive at Sushi Performance and Visual Arts Gallery. Sushi will be exhibiting work by 49 of the 50 artists included in the book (Manny Farber is the sole exception), all of which will be sold at auction on Dec. 17, with proceeds going to both the gallery and the artists. Such notables as Russell Forester, DeLoss McGraw, Raul Guerrero, Helen and Newton Harrison and Marjorie Nodelman will be represented.

Brushworks Gallery’s Fine Arts and Crafts Show features everything from the “frivolous” to the “fabulous.” More than 25 local artists and craftsmen will be featured in the show, which continues through Dec. 31.

Martha Chatelain, a San Diego artist known for her decorative work in handmade paper, will hold a holiday reception at her downtown studio (833 G St.) this evening from 5 to 9. Neighborhood galleries and shops will also be open tonight, including the Oneiros Gallery, which features a dazzling show of work by Idaho artist Duane Schnabel (through Dec. 10), the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art Downtown, which continues its exhibition of Tijuana artists through Jan. 8, and the International Gallery, whose “From the Bosphorus to Mt. Ararat: Traditional Folk Art of Turkey” also continues through Jan. 8.

Finally, the San Diego Museum of Art will be host of its annual showcase of local art, the Artists Guild juried exhibition, beginning Dec. 17. More than 600 entries in all media were considered by juror Lita Albuquerque; only 36 were chosen. The show continues through Jan. 29.