Seeing the Southland as a Colorful Shangri-La

The sun-drenched scenes of azure skies, billowing sails and foamy surf, painted during the 1930s and 1940s in California, recall a golden era for art collector E. Gene Crain.

“I’ve lived here in Southern California since 1942, and I love the beauty and Shangri-La quality it used to have,” Crain said. “These artists taught me how to love the land.”

The first major exhibition showcasing paintings from his collection opened Sunday at the Laguna Art Museum. “California Holiday: The E. Gene Crain Collection” comprises 90 works.

Crain, 68, began collecting in 1964 after he was introduced to painter Rex Brandt. Through Brandt, he met other artists. The young lawyer practiced in Corona del Mar. He soon began acquiring artwork, at times exchanging legal advice for it. He eventually amassed one of the largest private collections of California Regional art in the United States--1,000 works on canvas and paper.

“I didn’t know one end of a brush from another,” Crain said. The walls of his law office and home are filled with hundreds of paintings, hung from floor to ceiling. “The artists added a dimension to my life that I would not have ever had. I bought their paintings, initially, because I thought that was what would bring them closer to me.”

Brandt, Phil Dike and Millard Sheets--the artists dominant in the show--were key figures of the American Scene movement in Southern California. They also were the ones with whom the collector kept the closest, most-enduring ties; Crain gave his son the middle name Brandt.”His friendship with them meant more to him than their works,” said Janet Blake, the museum’s collections curator, who was also the curator of Crain’s personal collection for two decades. She and Susan Anderson are co-curators of the new exhibition, which displays works in oil, acrylic, gouache and mixed media.

Watercolor was the most popular and most defining medium of artists in the California School, including Barse Miller, Phil Paradise, Joan Irving, Fletcher Martin and Milford Zornes. Light, portable and quick to dry, the water-based paints allowed artists who mastered special techniques to work outdoors.

“Watercolor is a tricky medium, because it has certain demands and a mystique quality,” said Claremont resident Zornes, 94, one of the few surviving artists of the movement. Two of his paintings, the 1935 “Moonlight and Horses” and the 1945 “Alcatraz,” are in the show.

“Painting watercolor on a humid or overcast day is different than painting on a dry, hot day when you get crisp, hard edges,” Zornes said. “Cloudy days give you soft edges. It’s like the paint has a life of its own.”

The works are arranged by subject matter and include cityscapes, rural settings and beach scenes.

“Many of the works in the collection and exhibition relate to how this part of the world is a great place to live, with sailboats, sunlight, people playing--a quintessential California festive beach scene,” Blake said.

The signature piece, “California Holiday,” was painted by Dike in 1933 when he was 35. He captured a bird’s-eye view of a bustling cove, filled with tanned sunbathers amid sloping bluffs. In the background, the viewer sees sailboats in Newport Harbor.

Each painting triggers a memory for Crain.

“Surfriders” is one of the few oil paintings Brandt completed before he learned he was allergic to the medium, Crain recalled. The 1962 watercolor, “Yacht Race,” was the first painting Crain bought. The motif of the sun and ocean are central to Brandt’s paintings, Crain said. “Rex told me that when he grew up in Riverside, every afternoon at a certain time, he could step outside and smell the sea breeze coming through the canyons.”

Crain remembers how Dike was a well-versed poet on paper. But when it came to giving his paintings titles, the artist couldn’t find the words. “Phil loved the interaction between the edge of the sea and the land,” Crain said, referring to Dike’s blue and beige layers of colors, representing the ebb and flow of the shoreline in a work titled simply “Malibu Set # 4.” “He always had a lot of trouble naming his paintings,” Crain said, laughing.

Through Sheets’ eyes, Crain saw beauty in both lush green and parched brown countryside. “Paradise Cove” and “Abandoned” are landscape paintings that seemingly “come alive” with animal-like features, Crain explained. Sheets is known for his opaque, acrylic-like use of watercolors, Blake said.

One of Crain’s favorite tales t is how he rummaged through a community art sale at the former Pasadena Museum. The museum was permanently closing its doors and wanted to sell some of its collection. There on a table, priced at 25 cents, was Sheets’ 1933 “Beer for Prosperity.” Crain bought it.

Crain treasured these artworks regardless of their price.

“They painted as if Southern California was truly a paradise island, sheltered from extreme heat and cold,” Crain said. “And they, themselves, were young, merry, vigorous with boundless energy--just happy to be alive and active. It was reflected in their work.”

In their long, prolific careers, the painters saw their beloved vistas change with the coming and passing of the war, the development boom and the onset of smog and other pollutants. “There was a lot of camaraderie. We envied one another, appreciated one another, inspired one another and showed together, but that all changed after the war came,” Zornes said. The artists’ styles also began to change as they explored more abstract concepts and forms.

Modernism played a role.

“It had an impact on artists who painted in a representational way. They no longer received favorable attention, except from their loyal followers,” Blake said.

Crain never wavered in his dedication to his favorite artists.

“I wanted to chronicle their careers from their first painting to their last,” he said. “It chronicles a time and place in history that takes me back to what Southern California was like at the time, and the scenes that inspired them to paint.”

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“California Holiday: The E. Gene Crain Collection,” Laguna Art Museum, 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach. Daily, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, including Monday holidays; closed Wednesdays. Ends July 7. $4 to $5. Tuesdays, free. (949) 494-8971.