Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University

05/18/2019

That quiet time of the afternoon when we have a lot of patrons at the Hilbert Museum just silently appreciating the art...

05/13/2019

Join us at the Hilbert Museum for a free art talk this Thursday night, May 16 at 6 p.m. -- with free refreshments! Omar Holguin, founder of Pasadena's La Mancha Gallery, will be discussing "The Life and Art of Hernando Villa."

Admission is FREE with a ticket that you obtain here: http://chapman.universitytickets.com/user_pages/event.asp?id=2065&cid=93

Hernando Villa (1881-1952) was a very important California artist. The son of immigrants to Los Angeles from Baja California, he studied art in L.A., England and Germany, and specialized in paintings of the Old West and romantic Old California. He worked for 40 years as a commercial artist for the Santa Fe Railroad, creating their famous “Chief” emblem. Omar Holguin illuminates the life and work of this iconic California painter, in conjunction with the Hilbert Museum’s current exhibition featuring six of Villa’s outstanding paintings.

This talk is part of the Big Ideas Series, a free public lecture series exploring Mexican and Mexican-American culture by top academics in the fields of Mexican studies, religious studies, art and music, leading to the Heartbeat of Mexico Festival at Chapman University from May 23–26, 2019.

The series is generously supported by Chapman's Leatherby Libraries, the Hilbert Museum, and Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

05/03/2019

Please note that the Hilbert Museum will be CLOSED through May 10 for the changeover to the “GIFTED: Collecting the Art of California at Gardena High School, 1919-1956” exhibition. We will re-open at 6 pm on Saturday, May 11 for the “GIFTED” opening reception — join us for a lovely evening of art, music and refreshments and your first opportunity to view this spectacular new show! (Free and open to the public.)

05/03/2019

Join us on Saturday, May 11 from 6pm to 8pm for the Opening Reception for “GIFTED: Collecting the Art of California at Gardena High School, 1919-1956”! Gardena HS has one of the finest collections of California art in the state, ranging from CA Impressionism to Scene paintings, figurals and more. This is the first time in more than 60 years that the nearly complete collection has been exhibited in one place. The reception is free and open to the public, and will include refreshments and live music — come and enjoy, and be among the first to see this outstanding new exhibition (which runs through Oct. 19).

04/02/2019

We were delighted to welcome the kids from Youth Centers of Orange to the Hilbert Museum today!

Today our older kids were able to enjoy the Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University. Special thanks to Mary Platt for the great tour and to Mark Hilbert for treating our kids to Ruby’s for lunch! 😋👩‍🎨👨‍🎨

04/01/2019

Tony Tripp, Classical Guitar - Images in Music at Chapman University!

Join us at the Hilbert Museum this Thursday, April 4 at 7 pm for the next in our free Chamber Music Series of concerts. Tony Tripp, classical guitarist and Executive Director of the Youth Centers of Orange, will premiere a new work entitled "Three Images of Chapman" which he wrote as a show of gratitude for the University's support of the YCO. The piece will be performed by the Chapman University String Quartet along with Tony Tripp on the guitar.

Other pieces on the program are "Four Themes from Appalachian Spring" by Aaron Copeland, arranged by Tony Tripp; and "The Lark Ascending" by Ralph Vaughan Williams, with fabulous violin soloist Kirika Suzuki and the Porta Caeli Chamber Players.

It will be a great evening of music that invokes pleasant images in the mind of the listener and a great first concert for those wanting to experience a classical concert in an intimate setting. A reception with light refreshments will follow the performance.

Admission is FREE, but you must obtain a ticket online:
http://chapman.universitytickets.com/user_pages/event.asp?id=2041&cid=93 Bring the ticket as a printout or on your phone to the concert. Doors will open at 6:30 pm. Come early and enjoy our current art exhibitions!

Get your tickets at www.chapman.edu/events-ticketing! Powered by UniversityTickets.

03/26/2019

One of the most popular paintings in the Hilbert Museum is this masterful watercolor by Millard Sheets: "San Dimas Train Station," painted in 1933. It's part of our Permanent Collection and is always on display to the public, as it's a favorite of many visitors.

What sort of feeling do you have when you look at this painting? Some say "melancholy," "loneliness" or "isolation." The gray, lowering sky adds to that feeling. Some say "anticipation," as this is a train station -- but there's no train in sight. Is one coming soon?

Some have compared this painting to Edward Hopper's later (1942) "Nighthawks" at the Art Institute of Chicago. Same sort of feeling of isolation and anticipation? What do you think?

Notice the two figures -- one man sitting and reading a newspaper, the other man looking off to the side. Each is under his own light source. What are they waiting for -- to get on the next train, or to meet someone who's arriving? Notice the great precision with which Sheets rendered the details of the train station -- the style is called the Precisionist style of watercolors.

"San Dimas Train Station" is truly a masterwork, and we're proud to have it on permanent exhibition at the Hilbert Museum. Come visit it soon!

03/25/2019

Animation Drawings, Star Wars Art, and Cornfield Mickey, Oh My! - Join us this Saturday, March 30th, for an exhibit reception with the Hilbert Museum of California Art

Join the Hilbert Museum AT Chapman University's Leatherby Libraries this Saturday, March 30 -- reception for our current exhibitions in the library, plus a film screening of the fascinating "Mickey Mouse Cornfield Story." No ticket required -- come one, come all!

For just over two months now, the walls of the Doy and Dee Henley Reading Room on the second floor of the Leatherby Libraries have been adorned with a fantastic double exhibit on loan from the Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University, “Character References: The Art of the Animation D...

03/13/2019

Announcing the Hilbert Museum’s latest acquisition—on view now for a limited time! This is an extraordinary survivor of the 1890s — a lithographic poster advertising the opening of the famed Sutro Baths in San Francisco. It’s a 12-sheet (12 separate lithographs that would have been pasted up together) and is well-known as one of the most impressive posters of its era. VERY few have survived, since they were advertising posters and pasted to sides of buildings, etc. This one is in incredible, near-perfect condition. And you can see how large it is! Quite an amazing addition to our collection. If you’d like to know more about the amazing Sutro Baths and this poster, read on! (The following is the label we wrote for the wall.)

The Sutro Baths were a series of seven enormous indoor saltwater swimming pools, erected on the edge of the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco, where Geary Street ends. The extraordinary three-acre complex, which opened in March 1896, was housed in a huge structure with an extravagant glass-and-steel roof – an architectural wonder of the era – on the beach below the Cliff House. At the time of its opening, it was the world’s largest indoor swimming pool complex, and included slides, springboards and other recreational poolside equipment – a precursor, if you will, of today’s water parks.

The builder and owner was Adolf Sutro (1830-1898), a well-known mining engineer with major land holdings in San Francisco who served as mayor of the city from 1894 to 1896. The Baths were built as an attraction for tourists and local residents, and the complex included many lavish visitor amenities, including a 2,700-seat concert amphitheater and more than 500 private dressing rooms. For a time there was also an elaborate garden, as well as a museum of curios and art that Sutro had collected during his world travels. The Baths, served by two rail lines, also hosted popular events such as swimming competitions, beauty and dance contests, magic shows, theatrical performances and music concerts in its heyday.

An ice-skating rink was added in the 1930s, and the swimming pools remained open through the 1950s. But the cost of maintaining an ocean-side glass-roofed building became increasing burdensome, even as public tastes changed and patronage dwindled. The complex was sold in the 1960s and destined for demolition, but the structure suddenly and mysteriously burned to the ground in 1966. Its impressive, ruined foundations can still be viewed, and are now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

This large lithograph was produced using a stone lithographic process. The art was drawn directly on the stone plates, with separate plates for each color. The lithographs were then posted all over the San Francisco Bay area to announce the grand opening of the Sutro Baths in 1896. This is one of the very few original posters that has survived in near-perfect condition.

03/06/2019

Come to the Hilbert Museum this Friday evening, March 8 at 5:30 pm to enjoy a free talk by Jim Doti, Chapman University president emeritus and noted children's book author, as he takes you into the world of his newest book, "I Love You This Much, Nonna." It's the third in his "Jimmy Trilogy" of books based on his own childhood growing up in a close-knit Italian-American community in Chicago in the 1950s. Dr. Doti will discuss how an author and an illustrator work together to tell a story. Which is what the Hilbert Museum is all about: telling stories! Admission is free with a ticket obtained online at http://chapman.universitytickets.com. Come on over to the museum - it may be rainy outside this Friday, but inside it will be warm and dry and full of art and ideas! Refreshments will be served. Dr. Doti's book will be on sale for $20 each, and he will be donating the proceeds from book sales to the Hilbert Museum. The Hilbert Museum is located at 167 N. Atchison Street in Orange, CA -- limited free parking available in front, and lots of free parking is also available in the new city structure at 130 N. Lemon Street, just across the street from the Hilbert Museum.

03/02/2019

Jim Doti Talk/Book-Signing at Chapman University!

Please join us for a FREE special event at the Hilbert Museum on Friday, March 8th:

“USING ART TO TELL A STORY” – Talk and Book-Signing by James Doti, Chapman University President Emeritus and Acclaimed Children’s Book Author

Friday, March 8 -- 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University
167 N. Atchison Street, Orange (across from the Orange train station and Ruby’s Diner)

FREE and open to the public – must obtain free ticket online at https://bit.ly/2IJPfkW

Refreshments will be served. Books will be on sale for signing.

Join Chapman President Emeritus Jim Doti as he speaks about his latest children's book, "I Love You This Much, Nonna" -- the third in a series of three acclaimed children's books he has written based on his childhood in a close-knit Italian-American community in Chicago in the 1950s. The book, illustrated with gorgeous paintings by Bagram Ibatoulline, was recently selected by Kirkus Reviews as one of its prestigious Best 100 Books of the Year.

Dr. Doti will give an illustrated talk titled "Using Art to Tell a Story." "Since this talk will take place at the Hilbert Museum," he said, "I thought it would be interesting to focus on how the use of illustrations brings a story to life. I also will explain how images in my mind helped me in developing the narrative arc of the plot." The story focuses on little Jimmy’s love for his grandmother, Nonna, and how a child must deal with the loss that comes into every life.

A limited number of copies of the book will be available for sale at the event, and Dr. Doti will be happy to sign your book(s). (A great gift for the kids in your life – but adults love these books, too.)

There will also be time to explore the beautiful Hilbert Museum and its current art exhibitions. Refreshments will be served.

ADMISSION IS FREE and open to the public.

Presented by the Hilbert Museum of California Art and Chapman University's Leatherby Libraries.

Get your tickets at www.chapman.edu/events-ticketing! Powered by UniversityTickets.

03/02/2019

The Hilbert Museum’s ‘The Magic and Flair of Mary Blair’ Shines Light on Early Disney | OC Weekly

Check out this great review by Dave Barton of OC Weekly of the Hilbert Museum's current "Magic and Flair of Mary Blair" exhibition! The Disney artist is still drawing tons of admirers! https://ocweekly.com/the-hilbert-museums-the-magic-and-flair-of-mary-blair-shines-light-on-early-disney/

Considered the Disney Studios’ most influential concept artist until she left in the early 1950s, animator/designer/colorist/illustrator Mary Blair worked on a host of the company’s early classics…

02/23/2019

HENRIETTA BERK (1919-1990), "Picnic," c. 1960-62, oil on canvas. The Hilbert Collection.

On view now at the Hilbert Museum of California Art, in the Permanent Collection gallery.

Kansas-born Henrietta Berk attended the California College of Art in Oakland, where she studied with Richard Diebenkorn. Berk became well-known for her use of bold, textured swathes of color and modernist, expressionistic brushwork, and was a respected figure in the Bay Area Figurative movement.

Her subject matter ranged from floral still lifes to sweeping, colorful landscapes, and her work was exhibited in major galleries in the U.S. and abroad, as well as in the Oakland Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Art, De Young Museum and several others. Berk’s work was also collected by many celebrities, including Julie Andrews, Kim Novak and Edward G. Robinson. One of her paintings (which now hangs in the U.S. Embassy in Peru) appeared in the movie "Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?".

In her later years, Berk suffered from encroaching blindness due to diabetes, and this once-acclaimed artist fell into semi-obscurity after her death in 1990. Steven Stern Fine Arts in Los Angeles has launched the Henrietta Berk Project (henriettaberk.com), which is focused on putting the spotlight back on Berk, chronicling her highly accomplished life and cataloguing her complete works.

Some have speculated that this painting may depict a youthful Jackie and John F. Kennedy enjoying a picnic. Certainly the timeframe (early 1960s) is right, although no documentary evidence has been found to prove that was Berk’s intention. What do you think?

02/21/2019

From the Hilbert Museum Permanent Collection: Marc Trujillo, "8810 Tampa Avenue," 2015, oil on aluminum.

Why yes, this IS a Costco! (We looked up the address in the title, and it's the Costco in Northridge, CA).

Marc Trujillo, originally from Albuquerque, NM, currently resides in Los Angeles. He primarily paints the purgatory of American urban and suburban landscapes, such as gas stations, shopping malls, big-box stores and chain restaurants. Trujillo received his B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and his MFA from the Yale University School of Art. He is the recipient of the 2001 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award and a 2008 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors.

His work is in numerous public and private collections, including the Long Beach (CA) Museum and the New Britain (CT) Museum of American Art.