OPENING RECEPTION: 1ST THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2013, FROM 5 - 8PM
Sullivan Goss marks its 29th year in business with a historic exhibition of 21 watercolor paintings of each of California's historic Missions created between 1897-1900 by Edwin Deakin (1838-1923). Never before exhibited, these watercolors have been held privately by just two owners outside the artist's family and appear as fresh today as the day they were painted.
Edwin Deakin arrived in San Francisco in 1870 to make his way as an artist. Instrumental in creating a vibrant arts community in early San Francisco, he became famous for his landscapes, still lifes of grapes, and European architecture paintings before he committed himself to recording all 21 of California's historic Missions in paint. Between 1897 and 1900, he became the first artist to record all twenty-one missions with three full sets - two in oil and one in watercolor. The first set in oil now resides at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History. The second set in oil, created in case the first was damaged, now resides at the Santa Barbara Mission Archive Library.
The watercolors were intended to be published in a book, and towards that end, the artist created a handilluminated title page for each mission, a title page for the book, and a map illustrating the location of each mission along the historic Camino Real. All of the missions as well as these supporting works will be exhibited and offered for sale as a lot.
In 1951, Santa Barbara resident Howard Willoughby was able to purchase this cache directly from the descendants of the artist. They were eventually brought to the attention of Paul Mills, former director of both the Oakland Museum and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, who contributed foundational scholarship on Deakin and helped to shepherd Deakin's legacy into public collections. In 2008, Willoughby's mission was realized when the Crocker Museum created a full retrospective and catalog. While part of Willoughby's collection helped build the Oakland Museum's collection of California art, the watercolors were held back, waiting to be published in book form, as per the terms of the original acquisition.
Sullivan Goss is exceedingly proud to be able to show this historic national treasure. The exhibition will be supported by other historic works by Edward Potthast, Henry Chapman Ford, Lockwood de Forest, Nell Brooker Mayhew, Anders Aldrin, and John Sykes.
Living in Santa Barbara, one cannot escape the influence of the missions on the aesthetic of California. Thanks to the energetic Pearl Chase, the woman who crafted much of what has become the city's famously strict architectural code, red tile roofs run continuously from the mountains to the sea, uninterrupted by either tall buildings or modern developments. Thus the Mission Style that stretches now from its origins in stately homes and public buildings as far as the Taco Bell logo carries a special significance in this town, where it manifests in such an extraordinarily thorough and visually appealing way.
Across the coastal region of California from San Diego to San Francisco is a series of 21 missions established by the Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order. Founded between 1769 and 1823, these outposts have endured over time and are among the oldest monuments in the state. The missions have a vast and significant local as well as national history that have been shaped through time and preservation.
A solitary pilgrim, the formidably mustachioed Edwin Deakin made these splendid pictures of the California missions in the two years from 1897 to 1899. Caught up in the enthusiasm for the colonial era generated by Helen Hunt Jackson’s 1884 novel Ramona, Deakin resolved to capture and preserve, with his eye and his brushes, what were at the time mostly ruins, decaying reminders of a lost way of life. Although in 2013 it can be hard to imagine Southern California ever looking any other way, these humble, elegant watercolors are an exquisite reminder that there was a time when the Mission Revival style was actually a new idea, and one based on a fascinating amalgam of sentimental antiquarianism, bold adventure, and dreamlike romance.
THIS HISTORIC EXHIBITION of 21 watercolor paintings of each of California's historic Spanish missions–created between 1897-1900 by Edwin Deakin–comes to Sullivan Goss on March 7, just in time for the gallery to mark its 29th year in business with a significant display of our state's history.
At the time, the lone rider made his way along the abandoned "King's Highway" from San Diego to Sonoma visiting each of the 21 Mission locations. An order to disband the Missions had been issued in 1813 and by 1838, the Missions were completely desecularized. Many of the properties were used for alternative purposes or were left to ruin.
RELICS, RUINS, REMINDERS? THE SERENE BEAUTY OF THE OLD ALTA CALIFORNIA MISSIONS has come to light with the unveiling of a suite of paintings by Edwin Deakin that were in storage for most of the last 110 years. Sullivan Goss: An American Gallery will be hosting this group of 21 watercolors March 7th through June 30th in an exhibition titled, Along El Camino Real: Edwin Deakin's Twenty-One Missions in Watercolor.
