The Jonathan Art Foundation is honored that a local collector has recently lent two paintings to hang on the Jonathan Club's walls for a five-year period. These wonderful examples will help enhance our already prestigious collection of California plein air works. When walking around the Club, one will notice Paul Lauritz’s Sierra Snowfields (pictured above). This stately landscape, which measures 46 x 51 inches, depicts the majestic snow-capped Sierras, a popular subject matter for many of the artists represented in the building. One only has to recall Jack Wilkinson Smith’s Mountain Glacier, which is depicted on the cover of our book, Art at the Jonathan Club. Down the hall from the Smith, our generous member also lent Edgar Payne’s Veiled Grandeur—Sierras.
The Jonathan Art Foundation is reaching out to collectors, such as our current donor, who are willing to loan an important work from his/her own collection to be displayed in the Club’s public spaces for a short-term or long-term loan, or even as a bequest. As part of our mission, the Jonathan Art Foundation often allows works from its permanent collection to be sent out for museum exhibitions. When this happens, the Art Foundation often looks to its own membership to help fill in these temporary gaps. If a member expresses interest in lending an important example from their collection, we will accommodate the request to display for a longer term, if it enhances our collection.
In addition, the Jonathan Art Foundation will assist any collector in a bequest, whether monetarily or in the donation of a work of importance. The generous bequest of the Jane Lauman Trust allowed for the purchase of many of the works in the collection including Guy Rose’s Laguna Rocks, Hanson Puthuff’s Winter's Gold, the Saratoga paintings by Theodore Wores, Jean Mannheim's Arch Beach, Laguna, John Frost’s two-sided painting of Tahquitz Canyon, and Marion Kavanagh Wachtel’s April Morning, Santa Monica Canyon. A bequest could insure a favorite painting or paintings could hang in the institution in his/her memory for years to come and insure that we continue our mission to have one of the preeminent plein air collections in Southern California.