The Jonathan Art Foundation is proud to be lending its painting Arch Beach, Laguna by Jean Mannheim (1863-1945) to the Laguna Art Museum's exhibition "Art Colony: The Laguna Beach Art Association, 1918-1935." The exhibition is currently open and runs through January 13, 2019. The exhibition is part of a year-long celebration marking the Laguna Art Museum’s history and legacy by surveying its beginnings as a small local art association, and by honoring those early artists who influenced the developing Laguna Beach community.
Flanking the cliffs of Heisler Park overlooking Main Beach, the Museum’s original building was erected by the Laguna Beach Art Association in 1929. The extensive exhibition displays breathtaking depictions of early Laguna and other landscapes, portraits, and Modernist paintings by notable LBAA members such as Guy Rose, Anna Hills, and Edgar Payne. We are delighted to have our painting alongside works from notable collections such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Autry Museum and Irvine Museum, as well as a number of highly regarded private collections. Our painting shares the upstairs gallery with other glorious Laguna Beach scenes by fellow LBAA colleagues William Griffith, George Brandriff and Joseph Kleitsch.
The scenic spot at Arch Beach that our painting depicts is a short walk from where Mannheim established his summer painting studio shortly after the 1918 formation of the LBAA (of which he was a founding member). The painting itself was part of the artist’s personal collection, hanging in his home studio for nearly seventy years before the family sold it in the late 1980’s. Before JAF acquired it in 2014, the painting belonged to the Irvine Museum collection and was previously included in the Laguna Art Museum’s major 1986 exhibition “Impressionists of Laguna Beach.”
This exhibition serves JAF’s outreach mission to share its collection with the community through the lending of artwork to local institutions. The Laguna Art Museum is located at 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach, CA 92651. Museum hours are Thursday through Tuesday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and it remains open on Thursday evenings through 9 p.m. The Museum is closed Wednesdays. For more information, you may visit LAM’s website at www.lagunaartmuseum.org.