New exhibitions open during season of change at Costa Mesa museum
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The UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art in Costa Mesa has undergone a season of change. The transformation took place after UCI assumed full financial oversight of the Orange County Museum of Art in September 2025, under an acquisition plan approved by University of California’s Board of Regents.
The museum merger combined more than 9,000 pieces of contemporary and modern art in collections held by OCMA and the UC Irvine Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art (Langson IMCA).
In December, Kathryn Kanjo was named the new chief executive officer and director for the renamed museum. Kanjo, who formerly oversaw the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, assumed her role in February, managing the operations and programming for the now combined museums.
Now, as the proverbial dust settles the institution opens its latest exhibition, “Staging California in Early Hollywood.” On view now through Oct. 4, the show explores the two parallel worlds of the plein air artist community and Hollywood cinema, which both have their roots in our local region.
“This exhibition is really considering the contributions of these plein air artist to the Hollywood studio system,” said Michaëla Mohrmann, assistant curator at UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art.
While “Staging California” was schedule prior to Kanjo’s tenure, she notes that recent merger allowed the museum to expand on the concept.
“This exhibition was planned before the acquisition, but it was intended to be in a very modest space, so it started with constraints. But with this expanded space, I think our challenge was to figure out how we could say more, using our own holdings,” said Kanjo. “We were really pleased that the show, while long brewing, was able to expand and evolve.”
Organized by Alaina Claire Feldman and Christin Newell, with support from Mohrmann and curatorial student worker Amiri Bradford, “Staging California” is told in three sections with an addendum in “Collection Dialogues with Staging California in Early Hollywood” that further connects the exhibition to contemporary art and storytelling.
In the early days of Hollywood, Southern California served as backdrop for some of the eras most highly regarded cinematic stories. During the Great Depression, many plein air painters took on Hollywood scenic design work and their knowledge of the local landscape was utilized to bring movies to life by giving them a sense of place, both real and imagined.
“The first section is called ‘the Role of Place and Film,’ and its all about how different locations in California stood in for other imaginary places or foreign places,” said Mohrmann. “The artist who worked for the Hollywood studios, because they were plein air artists, knew the outdoors really well and could pinpoint the exact valleys, prairies and mountains that could stand in for the places the directors had in mind.”
Work from Paul Grimm, for instance, shows how his distinct study of rock formations is utilized in the backdrops he painted for the 1928 film, “Noah’s Ark.” A historical photograph of the backdrop, in use at the Iverson Movie Ranch in the Garden of the Rocks, show the painted biblical ark moored in the desert.
“What Grimm has done here is use the California landscape as inspiration for the backdrop, because there is a seamless transition from the real rocks to the painted rocks,” said Mohrmann.
The second section focuses on the emergence of the Hollywood Studio system and the standardization of the production of art.
“There are eight studios that really become dominant, MGM is the most notable one. It was very prolific and creating very high quality backdrops and special effects to the point that people could immediately identify if it is an MGM production,” said Mohrmann. “It is especially well known for “The Wizard of Oz.’”
Two particular artists were responsible for the quality and look of MGM scenic work, George Gibson, head of the scenic art department and Warren Newcombe, head of the matte painting department. Matte painting in film is a special effect that partially paints the scene on glass or canvas, with some area left out to be filled in with live action footage.
“They would paint part of the scene on glass with pastels or oils and the camera would film through the glass, so what was painted on the glass was superimposed on the set and the actors and it looks like a seamless, fictional world,” said Mohrmann.
An untitled work by Gibson depicts rolling hills of golden grass in a saturated yellow that can be correlated to his matte painting of the yellow brick road, winding in the distance in “The Wizard of Oz.”
This section also contains plein air work from famed Disney Studio animators Ralph Hulett and Lee and Mary Blair.
The final section highlights the uncredited artists whose work sometimes went unrecognized.
“We know for example, that Arthur Beaumont worked on several films, but we’ve only been able to identify two,” Mohrmann said of the artist well known for painting naval ships. “Since he is unaccredited, it’s just lost to history.”
This section is also where visitors see a large scale authentic background used on the set of “The Sound of Music.” Multiple artists worked on the scene under the direction of Emil J. Kosa Jr., who was then head of the special effects department at 20th Century Fox. Because the work was collaborative and quick, not all the artists who contributed to its completion were credited.
“Collection Dialogues with Staging California in Early Hollywood” continues the conversation with a selection of contemporary work.
“We brought forward more recent works of art that aren’t plein air, they aren’t scene art, but they are video art, photography and conceptual sculpture,” said Kanjo. “It creates a small, companion show drawn from our permanent collection that shows how this subject matter continues to resonate with artists.”
“The American Desert (for Chuck Jones)” for example is a multimedia work by artist Mungo Thomson that focuses on the backdrops of Looney Tunes animations where desert scenes and rock formations are prominent.
Collectively, “Staging California” and its companion, “Collection Dialogues” is a testament to the wide-ranging exhibitions art lovers can continue to expect from the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art as it settles into its blended era.
“While we are new, we are building on so many histories,” said Kanjo. “I am eager to bring those histories together.”
“Staging California in Early Hollywood” is on view at the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art, 3333 Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa, now through Oct. 4. For more information visit, langson.uci.edu.
