Monterey Museum of Art

The Monterey Museum of Art (MMA) is the only nationally accredited art museum between Santa Barbara and San Jose. Founded in 1959 as a chapter of the American Federation of Arts, the Museum’s artistic and educational activities have played a significant role in enhancing the quality of life for Monterey County residents and visitors for over fifty years.

The Museum operates two facilities—559 Pacific Street and 720 Via Mirada (La Mirada). The Pacific Street location has eight galleries and houses the administrative and curatorial offices and the Buck Education Center consisting of classrooms, a library and the Youth Gallery. In 1983, the Monterey Museum of Art acquired the historic estate of La Mirada, whose history reflects the heritage of the Monterey area. La Mirada was expanded with modern galleries and is used to present traveling exhibitions from other institutions, highlights of the Museum’s permanent collection that include masters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and significant emerging artists of today such as Ingrid Calame. Additionally, La Mirada is a favorite location for community and Museum events exposing thousands of visitors to the cultural and historical richness of estate.

The Museum’s permanent collection consists of more than 14,000 objects in the following areas: early California painting, photography, contemporary art, Asian art and American art. Highlights of the Museum’s collection include works by Armin Hansen, William F. Ritschel, Joan Miro, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso as well as that of world-renowned photographers Edward Weston and Ansel Adams.

MMA presents approximately twenty exhibitions annually. These include thematic exhibitions selected from the permanent collection, presentations of local artists and major traveling exhibitions from other institutions. In addition to the Museum’s exhibitions, it presents educational programs that reach thousands of area youth annually, docent programs, classes, lectures and workshops, curatorial tours and and public events such as a free Community Day organized for families. Other local institutions, including Monterey Peninsula College, Monterey Institute of International Studies, the Defense Language Institute and California State University Monterey Bay frequently use the Museum as a resource for classes.

Permanent Collections

The Monterey Museum of Art collects, preserves, and interprets the art of California from the nineteenth century to the present day, within a national and international context. In this way, we expand the appreciation of our evolving artistic legacy and inspire a passion for the visual arts. The holdings of the Monterey Museum of Art encompasses several complementary collections, including Early California Painting (1875-1945); American Art (1875-1945); Contemporary Art (1945-present); Photography and Asian Art.

Early California Painting

The Museum’s important collection of early California paintings and works on paper celebrates the Monterey Peninsula’s legacy as an influential art colony. Spanning the period from 1875 until 1945, the notable holdings include the work of early pioneers such as Jules Tavernier and Raymond Dabb Yelland and notable Impressionists E. Charlton Fortune and Evelyn McCormick. The collection’s emphasis falls on works created during the decades of the 1920s and 1930s—a period defined as California Modernism—exemplified by artists such as Gottardo Piazzoni, Francis McComas and Margaret Bruton. Important gifts from the Ritschel Memorial Trust and Mr. and Mrs. Justin Dart have solidified the Museum’s standing as the major repository of the works of William F. Ritschel and Armin Hansen--two seminal artists who defined the legacy of California landscape painting.

Photography

The distinguished photography holdings of the Monterey Museum of Art span the history of this medium. The 19th century collection includes the works of Carleton Watkins and William Henry Jackson; Anne Brigman and Johan Hagemeyer represent the early-twentieth century Pictorialist tradition. As befitting an institution situated on the scenic California Central Coast—the cradle of modern American photography—the collection emphasizes the works of the influential f/64 group and subsequent generations of photographers who followed their path. Most notably, featured photographs include Edward and Brett Weston, Ansel Adams and Imogen Cunningham as well as Wynn Bullock and Henry Gilpin. The broader, national photographic tradition is represented by the works of Charles Sheeler, Aaron Siskind, Irving Penn, Sally Mann and Gary Winograd, among others.The Museum has also begun expanding its photography holdings into the 21st century with the works of contemporary artists such as Angela Strassheim and Chris McCaw.

Contemporary Art

The Monterey Museum of Art’s contemporary art holdings span the period from 1945 to the present. The collection includes paintings and works on paper. It includes works by painters such as George Abend and Felix Ruvolo—key figures in the The San Francisco Bay Area abstract expressionism movement, as well as works by Bay Area Figurative School artists, including Nathan Oliveira, David Park, Roland Petersen and Joan Savo. The Museum’s formidable collection of postwar and contemporary prints includes Henri Matisse’s Jazz portfolio as well as notable works by Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí; American artists in the prints collection include Alexander Calder, Ilya Bolotowsky, Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist and Wayne Thiebaud.

Asian Art

The Monterey Museum of Art’s Asian art collection includes textiles, woodblock prints, jade and lacquer objects as well as ceramics from Japan, China and Korea. The collection is predominantly modern in scope and features masterful woodblock prints by masters such as Ando Hiroshige, Utagawa Kunisada and Katsushika Hokusai. Additional highlights include a formidable selection of Japanese netsuke; Chinese 19th and 20th century snuff bottles; fan ornaments from the 17th-19th centuries; and a collection of Chinese Yi Xing tea ware.

American Art

A counterpart to the Early California collection, the American Art holdings include paintings and works on paper spanning major North American art historical movements of the late 19th century to 1945. The collection includes works by Thomas Eakins and paintings by members of the Ashcan School—including John Sloane—as well as examples by leading impressionists, such as Childe Hassam. The modern art collection includes prints and drawings by Oscar Bluemner, Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Rockwell Kent and key proponents of the Regionalist style, including Grant Wood. Works on paper by master Mexican artists, including David Alfaro Siqueiros and Rufino Tamayo comprise another important aspect of the American Art collection.

The History of La Mirada

La Mirada began its existence as a small chalk rock structure built by a retired soldier of the Spanish Crown in the early 1800s. During the Mexican period, it was occupied by Commander José Antonio Castro and his wife Modesta Castro de Castro. As the leading military officer of the Mexican regime, Castro resisted the 1846 U.S. occupation of California and eventually returned to Mexico, leaving his wife and daughter behind.

In 1849, Jessie Benton Fremont, daughter of leading U.S. Senator, rented two rooms from Senora de Castro while her restless husband, General John Charles Fremont, occupied himself around the territory and supervised his prime gold mining stake at Mariposa. Jessie hosted the delegates to the California Constitutional Convention in what later became La Mirada’s rose garden, serving local game on improvised plank tables while ardently lobbying against slavery. When Fremont became one of the first two senators from the new state of California, the couple returned triumphantly to Washington.

The Castro property remained in the hands of Spanish-heritage owners until 1922, when Mrs. Diaz-Tucker sold it to the nationally famous novelist and screenwriter Gouverneur Morris. “Gov” and Ruth Wightman Morris hired local contractor J.C. (James Clarence) Anthony to incorporate the original Casa Castro into a modern residence, with adjacent guest house and walled garden. The Morrises hosted gatherings that included the great luminaries of Hollywood’s silent era – Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Pola Negri, Rudolph Valentino – as well as fighter Jack Dempsey and writer Sinclair Lewis. Later, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton graced the lavish drawing room when passing through the area. A major expansion in 1929 extended the drawing room to its present 40-foot length and added a full second story. This remodel turned out to be ill-timed; the property was foreclosed and sold at auction in 1934, another casualty of the Great Depression.

La Mirada’s extraordinary gardens began to be developed in the 1920s, when Gouverneur Morris filled his walled enclosure with hollyhocks and other annuals reminiscent of his native New England and sowed the almost treeless hillsides below with California wild flowers. His successor T.A. Work planted the upper garden with fruit trees, pines and cypress while Maud Porter Work cultivated a profusion of roses. During the Frank Work era, leading garden designer Florence Yoch redesigned the drawing room courtyard. The 1980s bequest of an important collection of rare rhododendrons in honor of Julia “Pat” Peden transforms the upper garden into a springtime wonderland. The Maud Porter Work garden overlooking El Estro features more than 100 varieties of roses.

Two generations of the Thomas A. Work family enjoyed Casa Castro for nearly half a century, from the mid-1930s through the early 1980s, when son Frank Work generously donated the house, furnishings and grounds to the Monterey Museum of Art. From 1983 to 1993, Monterey Museum of Art Association volunteers led bi-weekly tours of the house and gardens and helped raise funds for the expanded use of this unique facility.

The gallery wing, designed by the eminent architect Charles Moore and dedicated in 1994, was named in honor of benefactors Jane and Justin Dart, who also gifted their extraordinary collection of paintings and etchings by Armin Hansen. The Dart Galleries typically feature new travelling exhibitions on a quarterly basis.

The Virginia Klemme gallery, included in the new wing, regularly features exhibitions of the Museum’s collections of Asian art, regional paintings, decorative arts, or photography.

References

Ryce, Walter. “50 Fifty Grand.” Monterey County Weekly, 09 Apr. 2009.

Baker, Kenneth. “Painter’s solo show traces in steps of LeWitt.” San Francisco Chronicle, 6 Jan. 2011, Ovation, sec. F.

Kopp, Kathy.
The Story of La Mirada. Edited by Gail L. Gonzales. Monterey, CA: Monterey Museum of Art, 1998.

“Monterey Museum of Art Collections.” n.d. http://www.montereyart.org/collections/ (accessed Mar. 21, 2011).

External links

Monterey Museum of Art Website