August 23rd, 2010–On August 19th the Indian Wells City Council decided unanimously to trash the Carl Bray home and gallery, despite months of public pleas to save it and despite the findings of an EIR (Environmental Impact Report) that the…
Category: Desert Artists
California Art Experts Offer to Restore Carl Bray Gallery
August 3, 2010–The Carl Bray home and gallery in Indian Wells has been stuck in limbo, with the city determined to tear it down and preservationists determined to hang on to it. There were two big developments at an Indian…
Fernand Lungren “The Desert Speaks” Exhibit in Los Olivos
August 2, 2010–If you’re traveling anywhere near Santa Barbara before September 19th, consider detouring to Los Olivos to see works by Fernand Lungren, who’s been called the foremost desert painter of the early 1900s. Lungren, who was a resident of…
Celebrate Lora Woodhead Steere, a Pioneer of Idyllwild Arts
Lora Woodhead Steere was only a baby in 1890 when she first rode a wagon into Strawberry Valley in the San Jacinto mountains. In 1946 she met Max Krone, who was founding a new school in Idyllwild, and Steere went…
Katherine McKay: California Roaming
Ed. Update–We are sorry to report that Katherine McKay died of cancer, in Richmond, Calif., on October 12, 2011. Editor’s Note—We’ve been telling you about the early desert painters; with this essay by Katherine McKay we shift into the…
Save the Carl Bray Gallery; Submit a Comment by July 19th
The most significant brick-and-mortar monument to the Smoketree School of desert painters is the Carl Bray home and gallery in Indian Wells, Calif. As well as being the last remaining scrap of the original village of Indian Wells, Bray’s gallery…
Carl Bray: Grandpa Moses of the Desertlands
I’m sitting at Gramma’s restaurant in Banning, California, with the 92-year-old artist Carl Bray across the table from me. The legendary “smoketree painter” of Indian Wells, Carl is one of the last of the early desert artists. With his huge railroadman’s hands, he pushes aside the plates and unfolds a map of New Mexico to show me where he first steered “Brownie”–the esteemed Western painter R. Brownell McGrew–into Navajo country. (Brownie lived in Cathedral City in the 1950s and then in La Quinta—read more about him here soon.)
Honoring Sally Ward and Louise Tennyson
UPDATE: Louise Tennyson Goble died on July 15, 2010, in Palm Springs. She is survived by her husband, Floyd Goble of Palm Springs, and son Gary Pierce of New York City, along with other relatives. This June CDA recognizes two…
Agnes Martin’s “The Desert” Fails to Bring Huge Price
Art experts predicted that Agnes Martin’s painting “The Desert” would bring $4-6 million at a Sotheby’s auction in May. Instead, the minimum price was not met and the painting remains unsold—though other Martin paintings sold at Sotheby’s and Christie’s auctions…
CV History Museum Auctions Art
Before the Coachella Valley History Museum moved their archives into a new building, the basement of the Smiley-Tyler adobe held a tantalizing stash of early desert paintings that had been donated to the museum over its 25 years in existence.…