Posts Tagged ‘ Desert Magazine ’

Ginger Renner: Mother-Muse of Desert Painters

By
Ginger Renner: Mother-Muse of Desert Painters

For R. Brownell McGrew’s first ever one-man show in 1967, Ginger Renner packed nearly 1000 guests into her Desert Southwest Art Gallery in Palm Desert. The crowd spilled onto the then-deserted Highway 111, high on art and the owner’s infamous Fish House Punch. “You mix a goodly amount of fresh squeezed lime juice, Chablis, syrup and a pint of cheap brandy,” Renner explained. “You let that mellow and pour it quart for quart with champagne. It sure sold a lot of artwork.” Renner, who died on March 27, 2011 at age 89, was a PTA mom from Riverside who transformed…

Read more »

Norton Allen: Tracking the Elusive Mapmaker

By

Note: Through April 30, 2011, the Historical Society of Palm Desert presents the first contemporary display of Norton Allen’s work. Some 25 maps are on loan from book dealer William Dailey. Also on display are Norton Allen sketches and artifacts. www.HSPD.org My fascination with Norton Allen goes back to a hot day 15 years ago when I brought home a cardboard box of old Desert Magazines. The magazine, published from 1937 to 1985, offered an alternative to the Palm Springs of golf and martinis, introducing me instead to an appealing world of mirages, ghost towns and lost treasure. Then there…

Read more »

Home of the Smoketree School Threatened

By

The Smoketree School of desert art enjoyed its greatest flowering at the Desert Magazine art gallery on Highway 111 in Palm Desert. While the gallery is long gone, the building (it most recently housed LG’s Steakhouse) has looked much the same all these years. It’s a highly visible shrine to artists such as Jimmy Swinnerton, Olaf Wieghorst, Brownell McGrew, Bill Bender and many others. Now the shrine is threatened with defacement. The owner, San Diego developer Sam Rasmussen, appeared before the Palm Desert architectural review committee on July 10, 2012. The City approved his plan for a modernized facade for the building.…

Read more »

Gary Fillmore Speaks in Palm Desert

By
Gary Fillmore Speaks in Palm Desert

Gary Fillmore, a well-known authority on Arizona and Western art, comes to Palm Desert on Friday,  April 23rd to speak on the painters Marjorie Reed, John Hilton and Jimmy Swinnerton. All three once lived and painted in the Coachella Valley. Fillmore, owner of the Blue Coyote Gallery in Cave Creek, Arizona (near Phoenix), is the author of an acclaimed biography on Reed “All Aboard: The Life and Work of Marjorie Reed” as well a book on Swinnerton: “Desert Horizons: Images of Jimmy Swinnerton’s Southwest”. Fillmore will be speaking at a location essential to the history of desert art. LG’s Prime…

Read more »

NEWS

Subscribe


 

More News

READ ALL NEWS