The Book Club of California is delighted to announce "Splendide Californie! Impressions of the Golden State by French Artists, 1786 to 1900," a celebration of French art in California.
This new art history spans the earliest world voyages of French sea captains and crews of classically trained artists, draftsmen, and scientists, to the Franco-American children of French gold-rush artists whose late-nineteenth-century Impressionistic paintings forever married the artistic legacy of two nations. This collection of eighty images, many of which appear in print for the first time, contains paintings, sketches, lithographs, and photographs, including such historical treasures as the 1789 Reception of Lapérouse at Mission Carmel; Vue de l'Etablissement russe de la Bodéga, 1828; Indigènes de la haute Californie, 1837; and San Francisco Upper California in 1847, artistic creations that informed and intrigued both the scientific world and ordinary people as well. These paintings preserve a view of isolated colonial California on the threshold of its explosive gold discovery.
Paired with the exquisite art plates are biographical essays on twenty-eight artists. Each is a carefully researched profile that follows the artist's native roots, aesthetic training, career, travels, and travails, in language that brings the artist to life. Each of the book's six sections, spanning distinct periods of French artistic activity in California, includes a series of contemporary narratives, historic documents written by or about the artists and their eras, which heighten our understanding of the plates and their creators. A sampling includes Lapérouse's report of visiting Mission San Carlos Borromeo, William Heath Davis's account of the pioneer French Californio vintner Don Luis Vignes, Etienne Derbec's account of the misery of subsistence in the gold mines, cultural activities of the San Francisco Bohemians, the art scene in Los Angeles, and reported escapades of the talented but tempestuous Jules Tavernier.
Together, the book's art works, biographies, and historic narratives offer a broad chronicle of the evolution and legacy of French contributions to and influences on California's art community. From the Pacific Coast to Paris, far beyond and back, Splendide Californie! for the first time captures and preserves this rich artistic story in one stunning volume. Notes and an extensive bibliography suggest further sources for general reader and art scholar alike.
Author Claudine Chalmers first studied in California as a visiting student from her native France. She returned several times while completing graduate work at the University of Nice, before settling permanently in California. An ardent outdoors woman, she spent much time in the Sierra and in the weathered mining towns stacked against the Sierra foothills, where she came to the gradual recognition that over a hundred years ago many French adventurers had participated in the Gold Rush. Her curiosity about earlier compatriots in the Golden State led her to investigate French contribution to this facet of California’s history, and ultimately, to her doctoral dissertation on the subject. During years of additional research and travel, marked by lectures, articles, and an exhibit, she became acquainted with James McClatchy of Sacramento, long actively interested in California history. He had also been involved in the Bay Area’s French community through his years as a board member, then president and chairman of the board of San Francisco’s French-American International school, for which the French government honored him with a Palme Académique. With his continued encouragement and support, Dr. Chalmers pursued the completion of this work. Their cooperation has produced an important, engaging, and unique art history.
Splendide Californie! Was designed and the book’s production was supervised by The Yolla Bolly Press, Covelo, California. The text was set in the Garamond types by Farris Graphics, Covelo, California. The edition of 450 copies was printed on Arches Velin paper by photo offset lithography by Yon Art Printing, South Korea. The binding is of Dutch cloth over archival boards, with a color reproduction of an Ernest Narjot self-portrait on the cover.
The price of the book is $160.00. [note: the book is now out of print]
The Publications Committee, The Book Club of California, 312 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA 94108. Publication number 212.
