Landscape and Figuration from the Collection featured exemplar twentieth century works from the permanent collection ranging from impressionism to modernism. Works from the early part of the century included several of the museum’s popular impressionist paintings, among them The Old Post Office (c. 1922–23) by Joseph Kleitsch and Golden Morrow (1931) by Granville Redmond. The exhibition also featured works by artists who aligned themselves with a more modernist approach in both landscape and figurative works. Included were Day’s End (1947) by Francis de Erdely and Bastions of the Painted Desert (c. 1910) by Fernand Lungren, both of which were included in the 2009 exhibition Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum. There were also several paintings on view that had not been exhibited in many years, including signature works by McClelland Barclay, Conrad Buff, Leland Curtis, Phil Dike, Elsie Palmer Payne, Lee Randolph, Anna Katharine Skeele, and Elmer Wachtel.

Landscape and Figuration from the Collection was curated by Janet Blake, curator of collections. This exhibition was generously supported by Tatiana and Jean Gaulin.