As a dedicated master of pictorialism, Mortensen’s ideas threatened purist photographers who believed that photos should faithfully and accurately represent the real world. “Pictorialism was a movement that began in the very late 19th century and extended into the 20th century with photographers who tried to make photographs either look like art – in other words they altered things to look more painterly – or tried to explore ideas like emotional qualities,” said Lytle. “They were hated by the purist photographers, like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, who wanted photography to tell the truth and not look like anything other than a photograph.”

For this edition of Art & Nature, the museum consciously focused exhibitions on how artists are interpreting the various environmental crisis being faced in Southern California and around the globe. Art’s engagement with the natural world speaks particularly to the identity of Laguna Beach. In 1929, when the Laguna Beach Art Association built a gallery to show and sell members’ work, it chose a commanding location on the coastline, close to the natural wonders they loved painting.

Laguna Art Museum is presenting Black and White: Contemporary Art from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation on view July 2 through October 9. Curated by Foundation Director Billie Milam Weisman, the special exhibition features 30 artworks from the Foundation created by artists living and working in California across different generations.

Alissa Anderson Campbell, the guest curator of Striking Figures: Francis De Erdely at the Laguna Art Museum, first discovered the once-renowned artist in 2006 while doing research for Sullivan Goss Gallery in Santa Barbara, California. Intrigued by the power of his extant works, Campbell made De Erdely the subject of her PhD dissertation and has continued her research ever since.

Laguna Art Museum welcomed Julie Perlin Lee to its helm as executive director in May 2021. Fifteen months on, she has proven herself an energetic seeker of collaborations with many area institutions.

Black and white are often defined as complete opposites. When a subject is deemed black and white, it is a euphemism for simple, clear cut and uncomplicated. But as Laguna Art Museum’s new exhibit, “Black and White: Contemporary Art from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation” demonstrates, black and white can contain multiplicities.

A collaboration between Laguna Beach Pride 365 and Laguna Art Museum is the latest sign of LGBTQ acceptance in the community. The museum will host a Pride celebration and panel discussion event Saturday from 4 to 8 p.m.

With the summer comes new beginnings for the Laguna Art Museum. At over 100 years old, the museum is one of the oldest in the state, and this year introduces new kinds of programs for kids.

Jean Lowe’s work parodies our most banal behaviors by inviting us to consume images of our own consumption.

Despite its lengthy history, Laguna Art Museum, a longtime cultural pillar of the local community, is just getting started.

A magnificent 26-foot-wide mural adorns Laguna Art Museum’s exhibition of work by 20th-century artist Jesse Arms Botke.

After serving as executive director of Catalina Island Museum and vice president of collections and exhibition development at Bowers Museum, Julie Perlin Lee has landed at Laguna Art Museum as its new executive director.

One of the more anticipated events on the Laguna Art Museum’s calendar returned this month with the ninth installment of the Art and Nature showcase.

If art is a metaphor for life, this photographic display is an exploration of humanity’s creative energy, along with the search for meaning and identity.

Celebrity photographer Matthew Rolston, known for lush portraits of actors and musicians, took a different approach in ‘Art People,’ his exhibition of 2016 Pageant photographs.

Wayne Thiebaud’s exhibition at The Laguna Art Museum, simply entitled ‘Clowns,’ is a delightful surprise, revealing the centenarian painter to be at the top of his form.

Rolston’s portraits are on view through September 19 in the exhibition “Matthew Rolston, Art People: The Pageant Portraits” at Laguna Art Museum.

Hymns to the Silence represents the distillation of decades of work that’s come before it.

A portion of funds from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts have reached Orange County once again.

Each summer, on a stage in Laguna Beach, California, performers assemble themselves into “tableaux vivant” — living pictures.

Two dozen black and white photographs — all portraying the pared down exteriors of Southern California buildings — are expressions of Jacques Garnier’s passion for architecture, art history and poetry.

Through the decades, people have flocked to Laguna Beach to witness for themselves the alluring tableaux vivants of the Pageant of the Masters.

There couldn’t be a more fitting exhibition to celebrate the opening of the Pageant of the Masters – and the city’s reemergence.

Postponed a year due to COVID-19, Matthew Rolston’s “Art People: The Pageant Portraits” is finally open, and it was truly worth the wait.

Laguna Art Museum receives a Curatorial Research Fellowship for Sharrissa Iqbal and Michael Duncan.

“Art People” is scheduled to open at the Laguna Art Museum on Sunday, June 27 – a week and a half before the tableaux vivant Pageant begins on July 7.

Art Walk at the Laguna Art Museum will be online with a docent-led virtual tour of the “Wayne Thiebaud: Clowns” exhibit at 5:30 p.m.

The Laguna College of Art + Design graduate students’ artwork: thought-provoking and beautifully executed.

The compelling background to this show is that these portraits were created by 100-year-old Wayne Thiebaud, a California native who has been called the quintessential American painter.

The Laguna Art Museum has chosen Julie Perlin Lee as its next executive director. A national search to fill the position was conducted by the museum.