Download PDF scan of original article

The Laguna Art Museum was founded, over seven decades ago, by a group of California’s most prominent artists of the time. From its inception the museum has devoted a substantial portion of its resources to a continuing study of the history and contemporary practice of art in California; today it is the sole museum in Southern California devoted exclusively to American art, and the only museum to so concentrate on California art.

The difference between provincialism and regionalism—between narrowness of mind and focus of program—revolves entirely around an understanding of context. No museum program of quality can survive the thin air and thin blood of mere parochial interest in local art and issues. But an understanding of a region’s place in the larger world of art, a firm grasp of what the microcosm may reveal about the whole, an appreciation of the diversity of humankind’s cultural achievements and the uniqueness of one’s contribution to that diversity—these are insights to be gained from concentrated attention to the particular in the context of the general.

Associate Curator Susan M. Anderson has undertaken a model Laguna Art Museum project in this book and the exhibition it accompanies. Her work has documented, for the first time, the influential and energizing effect of a unique confluence of events in the 1940s: a World War, a rapidly changing surrealist art movement, the move from England to California of three of that movement’s brightest lights, and the Son Francisco Bay Area’s ripeness for artistic change. While the larger consequences are beyond the scope of her project, it should be clear that the arrival of Stanley William Hayter, Charles Howard and Gordon Onslow Ford on the West Coast had reverberations in the work of such California originals as Clay Spohn and Lee Mullican as well as in that of so central a twentieth-century figure as Jackson Pollock.

This museum is blessed with a professional and dedicated staff that, time and again, proves itself capable of a higher level of accomplishment than those of institutions twice our size. We thank them all for their contributions, but would single out a few who played particularly important roles in this project: Lynn Kirst, former Director of Development, encouraged the curator and the staff to pursue this project at an early stage; Nancy Coop has coordinated production of this catalogue and all publicity with her usual combination of thoroughness and supportive attitude.

We are especially grateful to two curatorial interns who, with initiative and exceptional efficiency, helped us to meet our deadlines. Susan Wilden provided research assistance and helped to compile the bibliography and to organize loans. Sarah Vure, a graduate student at Boston University, helped with all aspects of the organization of the exhibition and catalogue. She wrote the artist chronologies, coordinated the photography, helped to compile the bibliography and to arrange loans, and functioned brilliantly in every way as research assistant to the exhibition curator.

Pursuit of the Marvelous is this museum’s contribution to the Festival of Britain, Orange County, a cooperative tribute by more than twenty Southern California institutions to Great Britain and its people for their extraordinary artistic accomplishments. The Festival, presenting events in theater, popular and classical music, film, dance, opera and the visual arts, will be presented during October 1990.

For the members and trustees of the Laguna Art Museum I express deep gratitude to the Festival of Britain for its financial support of this exhibition and publication. This project was also supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency which in its twenty-five years of existence has fostered a virtual renaissance in this country by its commitment to all that is good in American art.