THE ART LOVER'S GUIDE TO COLLECTING FINE ART IN CALIFORNIA

The state of California has a deeply rooted history within fine art.

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The iconic Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. Photo by Line Kjær.

Many of the most prominent names in American art called the Golden State home or spent large swaths of their lives there, capturing the state’s far-reaching beauty. California has some of the most gorgeous natural areas in the country, from crystal beaches and coastal mountain ranges to stunning national parks like Yosemite and Redwood.

One of the biggest art movements to emerge from the state was California impressionism, in which revered 20th-century artists like Edgar Alwin Payne, Granville Redmond, Anna Althea Hills and John Marshall Gamble painted outdoor scenes in plein air. These artists and many others immersed themselves directly in the nature they depicted, creating a unique interpretation of the West Coast that grew into its own regional variation on American impressionism.

Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), Among the Sierra Nevada, California, 1868, oil on canvas, 72 x 120%. Smithsonian American Art Museum, bequest of Helen Huntington Hull, granddaughter of William Brown Dinsmore, who acquired the painting in 1873 for "The Locusts," the family estate in Dutchess County, New York, 1977.107.1.