October 24, 2011-May 20, 2012

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On view in the museum’s Upstairs Gallery is a selection of works from the Laguna Art Museum collection representing artists who worked in California in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Both northern and southern California artists are represented and include: Mischa Askenazy, Franz Bischoff, Carl Oscar Borg, Maurice Braun, Benjamin C. Brown, Frank Cuprien, William Swift Daniell, Edwin Deakin, Anna Hills, Thomas Hunt, Martin Jackson, Edgar Payne, Hanson Puthuff, Julian Rix, F. Carl Schmidt, Jack Wilkinson Smith, Gardner Symons, and William Wendt. Their varied styles are a reflection of their widely diverse backgrounds. That diversity is a direct result of the surge of immigration that occurred after the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. As artists ventured west—first to San Francisco and then to Los Angeles—they began creating paintings that were shipped east, to Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City. Paintings showing the grandeur of the western landscape drew attention from critics and dealers, which further encouraged artists to travel west. Some remained permanently, others only for a few months or years, and some maintained studios on both coasts.
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Art colonies were established in Carmel, Santa Barbara, Laguna Beach, and San Diego. Laguna Beach gained fame through the work of artists such as Frank Cuprien, Anna Hills, Thomas Hunt, Edgar Payne, Gardner Symons, and William Wendt. The art colony in Laguna Beach became one of the most active, enjoying a national reputation by the early 1920s. The Laguna Beach Art Association, founded in 1918, played an important role in shaping the community. Their gallery on Cliff Drive, which opened in February 1929, forms the core of today’s Laguna Art Museum.
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May 5-27, 2012

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Laguna Art Museum hosts Laguna College of Art + Design’s graduate MFA in Painting and Drawing exhibition in spring 2012. The exhibition is on display in the museum’s lower level galleries, and admission is free for the duration of the exhibition.
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LCAD’s MFA in Painting and Drawing is a two-year program in which students turn focused research into the formal and conceptual potentials of representational painting and drawing. Designed as an immersion in the history, theory, and practice of representation, LCAD’s MFA in Painting and Drawing program functions as a laboratory where students can investigate contemporary subject matter within the pictorial tradition. The MFA exhibition at Laguna Art Museum will show the breadth of this research from current MFA students.
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In 2011, Laguna Art Museum and LCAD announced a new collaboration that will further engage students with the museum and extend the relationship between the two institutions and their community.
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Tom Kenneth Enman, 1928-2012 Photo by George Hurrell

Tom Enman, former director of the Laguna Beach Museum of Art (now Laguna Art Museum), passed away on February 23, 2012, the day after his eighty-fourth birthday. Tom shepherded the museum through many years of controversy and change. He was initially hired by Roger Armstrong to manage the Laguna Beach Art Association’s gallery, a position he held for eighteen months. During that time he lobbied for increasing the size of the association’s permanent collection by awarding purchase prizes to artists exhibiting with the Orange County annual exhibitions. Enman became director in 1967, a position he held until 1980. During his tenure, he successfully lobbied for having the association show all periods of art, historical to contemporary.

Tom Enman and his assistant with Maurice Block at the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation exhibition, 1978

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In his first five years as director, Enman presented monographic exhibitions on Karl Benjamin, Roger Kuntz, and Robert Natkin, and a two-person exhibition for Arshile Gorky and Hans Burkhardt. It would be these museum-quality exhibitions and the leadership of board president Jack Glenn that propelled the association to strive for museum status, which they achieved in July 1972. That status afforded the museum the ability to apply for local, state, and federal grants, funds that were sorely needed for the struggling institution. Barbara Steele Williams took over as board president in 1976 and buoyed up the museum’s finances with grants from the Harry and Grace Steele Foundation. In the years following, many other exhibitions of both contemporary and historical work were mounted, including the First All California Photography Exhibition; An Exhibition of Twenty-nine Paintings from the Collection of Mrs. John McLaughlin; and Hard and Cheap, featuring the work of ten funk ceramicists. Historical exhibitions included the ground-breaking Southern California Art, 1890–1940, which showcased many works from the museum’s permanent collection and paved the way for future exhibitions focusing on the early years in California.
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Enman resigned in 1980, after which Dr. William Otton was named director. Through the years Tom donated numerous works to the museum’s collection, two of which—Florence Arnold’s Dark #3 and Jack Zajac’s The Green Airplane—were recently on view in The Postwar Era: From the Collection, 1945–1980.

Thursday, May 17, 2011 (7:00 p.m.)

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Laguna Beach Film Society presents

2012 Academy Awards Nominated Live Action Shorts

Join the Film Society in viewing the newest nominated shorts from near and far.
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PENTECOST
By Peter McDonald and Eimear O’Kane
When Damian is forced to serve as an altar boy at an important mass in his local parish, he faces a difficult choice: conform to the status quo, or serve an extended ban from his life’s passion–football.
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RAJU
By Max Zähle and Stefan Gieren
Director Max Zaehle, together with his Director of Photography Sin Huh, and wonderful actors Wotan Wilke Möhring and Julia Richter, succeed at making the moral dilemma faced by couples wishing to adopt emotionally palpable.
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TIME FREAK
By Andrew Bowler and Gigi Causey
A neurotic inventor creates a time machine, only to get caught up traveling around yesterday.
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THE SHORE
By Terry George and Oorlagh George
After 25 years in exile, Jim Mahon (Ciaran Hinds) returns to Ireland to show his American daughter Patty (Kerry Condon) his Belfast roots. But things don’t go as planned when she learns of a secret love triangle and a long lost best friend, Paddy (Conleth Hill). Their reconciliation leads to hilarious confusion. Directed by two time Oscar nominee Terry George, The Shore won an Academy Award for Best Film (Live Action) at the 2012 Oscars. It also won Best Director and Best Actor at the Rhode Island Film Festival, and is nominated for an Irish Film and Television Award.
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TUBA ATLANTIC
By Hallvar Witzø
Everybody is going to die one day. Oskar, 70, is going to die in 6 days. He is now ready to forgive his brother for a disagreement years ago. Will he reach his brother, who he believes live on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean?
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About the Screening

This screening will take place at South Coast Cinema, 162 S. Coast Hwy, Laguna Beach at 7:00 p.m.
A pre-show reception will take place at 6:00 p.m. at Laguna Art Museum, 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach, and includes wine and hors d’oeuvres.
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Screenings and reception are FREE to LBFS Members, $20 for guests and public
Screening tickets available at South Coast Theater: $15 general, $10 for students with valid ID
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>> For more information please contact JoAnne Story at 949.494.8971 x201
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>> Join the Film Society!

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May 18, 2012

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Now in its seventh year, Palette to Palate has quickly become one of Orange County’s most anticipated art and dining experiences, named by Riviera magazine among its Top Ten in its May 2011 issue. This fundraiser is limited to just 100 attendees. Proceeds benefit the extraordinary education and exhibition programs at Laguna Art Museum.
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The museum has a very special evening in store, as Palette to Palate 2012 will feature the highly acclaimed wines of Ramey Wine Cellars with cuisine by Executive Chef Craig Strong of Studio at Montage Laguna Beach, who will once again prepare an incredible four course dinner on site at the museum with his team of chefs, ensuring a top tier epicurean experience. The superb wine and cuisine will be complemented by the work of ten artists, presented at each of the dining tables and throughout the Steele Gallery, the museum’s largest exhibition space. Each artist will be new to the event, and will join guests for dinner at the table they have created, with all of their work available for purchase.
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This event is sold out. Please contact Director of Special Events Sarah Strozza at 949.494.8971 x219 for more information.

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2012 Event Sponsors:
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Artist Sponsors

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2011 Recap

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On Saturday, May 21, 2011, Laguna Art Museum was transformed into a beautiful and unique venue, featuring the talents of Chef Craig Strong of Studio at Montage Laguna Beach, the acclaimed wines of STAGLIN FAMILY VINEYARD, and original work by ten invited artists. Tickets to this exclusive evening were valued at $500 per person and were offered to the museum’s highest level donors. However, as the event remains strictly limited to just 100 attendees, Palette to Palate was nearly sold out before the invitations were in the mail.
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Arriving guests were welcomed into the California Gallery and offered tray passed hors d’oeuvres, cocktails, and selected wines. As guests and artists mingled, they enjoyed the sounds of a live guitar trio and were able to take in the beautiful paintings on display from the Laguna Art Museum’s permanent collection. Adding to the ambiance, noted Los Angeles nursery and florist, Rolling Greens, donated exquisite floral arrangements, which were later sold to attendees.
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Event chairman Elyse Caraco Miller signaled the end of the reception with words of welcome and thanks. The Steele Gallery doors were then opened, revealing the full spectrum of the artists’ creations. Each year, a different slate of artists is invited to participate in Palette to Palate, ensuring that the event is truly unique. This year’s artists provided a remarkable array of work that employed a variety of media. After having the opportunity to view the artists’ works, guests took their seats to enjoy Chef Strong’s superb four-course menu paired with wine presented by Shari and Garen Staglin of STAGLIN FAMILY VINEYARD. Prior to dessert service, a limited number of exclusive experiences were offered in a live auction. By dessert, much of the artists’ work had been sold. Dinner was followed by a selection of artisan cheeses, handmade chocolates, specialty cocktails, and a coffee bar.
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Palette to Palate sponsors included STAGLIN FAMILY VINEYARD, Montage Laguna Beach, Dean & Deluca, AG Jeans, Riviera magazine, Rolling Greens, and Wine Gallery, Corona del Mar.
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Laguna Art Museum thanks the 2011 participating artists, without whom this event would not have been possible: Guillermo Bert, Todd Brainard, Brenda K. Bredvik, Dennis Hare, Portia Hein, Paul Paiement, David Allan Peters, Greg Price, Susan Sironi, and Scott Yeskel.
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Thursday, June 7, 2012

7:00 p.m.
Free admission
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The Conversation With… series brings artists to Laguna Art Museum to discuss their practice in a casual conversation with guests. The next artist in the series is Allison Schulnik. Past guests in the series, which launched in 2011, have included Amy Caterina, The Legacy Project, Deborah Aschheim,  Ed Gomez, and Jeff Gillette. The evening will begin with a brief presentation by Schulnik about her process and work, followed by the rare opportunity for museum visitors to engage with the artist in conversation.
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Allison Schulnik, photo by Danielle Levitt, courtesy of the artist and Mark Moore Gallery, Culver City

Allison Schulnik choreographs her subjects in compositions that embody a spirit of the macabre, a Shakespearian comedy/tragedy of love, death, and farce. The subjects often stare back at the audience and study them as they are in turn studied, aware of their ancestors from the Grand Theme works of the past, the genre paintings that inform them. Although a haunting sense of foreboding, discomfort, and unease is palpable, a sense of understanding, compassion, and hopefulness for her cast of characters is still evident in the heavy impasto paintings. Her sculptural use of oil paint references her clay-animation background, as a motion-like sensibility affords her paintings unparalleled depth and energy.
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Born in 1978 in San Diego, Schulnik earned her BFA in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia. She has had significant solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Rome, and London, and has exhibited in both visual arts shows and film screenings around the world. Her work can be seen in the public collections of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art,, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego,, The Chaney Family Collection,, Museé de Beaux Arts, and Laguna Art Museum. The artist lives and works in Los Angeles.
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Following the discussion, enjoy a mixer featuring complimentary beverages and the opportunity to meet the artist. Additionally, you are encouraged to view the museum’s current exhibitions as well as participate in the Laguna Beach First Thursday Art Walk which takes place at area galleries from 6:00-9:00 p.m.
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>> Admission is free and reservations are not required. The museum is open for free from 5:00-9:00 p.m. the first Thursday of each month.