The Sunshine State, West

PMCA captures the mood of the left coast.

IT'S NO QUESTION CALIFORNIA IS A UNIQUE STATE. With terrain ranging from the lofty Sierra Nevadas to the Mojave Desert, each region is colored by the landscape, which, in turn, defines the people and their mosaic. In The Land Of Sunshine at Pasadena Museum of California Art tells an intimate story of the development of the California Coastline, its thriving culture, and the camaraderie amongst local artists. Curator Gordon McClelland has lovingly put together a show that will have visitors from all over the country walking away feeling like true West Coast locals.

Greg Escalante: Give us a little background about the scope of the show and who’s in it.

Gordon McClelland: In The Land of Sunshine is a show I have thought about doing for a long time, and it finally became a reality earlier this year when the Pasadena Museum of California Art agreed to let me curate and design this exhibition. It features works from as far back as the 1850’s and as recent as this year. Included among the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century California artists are William Coulter, William Wendt, Joseph Kleitsch, Alson Clark and Duncan Gleason. Artists from the 1930-to-1960 era include Phil Dike, Rex Brandt, Millard Sheets, Keith Crown and Milford Zornes. The 1960s-to-1980s era is represented by a number of fine artists such as Roger Kuntz, Robert Frame, and Richard Bunkall, while more recent works include paintings by Suong Yangchareon, William Wray and Bradford J. Salamon. A special surf art section is comprised of major works by Rick Griffin, John Severson, Bill Ogden and Kevin Short.

Do you have one of my favorite paintings, the guy carrying the board on his back, going up the steps in Laguna?