Driesbach Janice T. - Art of the Gold Rush

ART OF THE GOLD RUSH

Janice T. Driesbach
Harvey L. Jones
and
Katherine Church Holland

Copublished by the Oakland Museum of California, the Crocker Art Museum, and the University of California Press.

1998 by the Regents of the University of California.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the copyright owner, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

Exhibition Schedule

OAKLAND MUSEUM of CALIFORNIA

Oakland, California

24 January31 May 1998

CROCKER ART MUSEUM

Sacramento, California

21 June13 September 1998

NATIONAL MUSEUM of AMERICAN ART

Smithsonian Institution

Washington, D.C.

30 October 19987 March 1999

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Driesbach, Janice Tolhurst.

Art of the gold rush / by Janice T. Driesbach, Harvey L. Jones, and Katherine Church Holland.

p. cm.

Catalog of an exhibition held at the Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, Calif., Jan. 24May 31, 1998; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, Calif., June 21Sept. 13, 1998; National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Oct. 30, 1998Mar. 7, 1999.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-520-21432-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Art, AmericanCaliforniaExhibitions. 2. Art, Modern19th centuryCaliforniaExhibitions.

3. Gold mines and mining in art. 4. CaliforniaGold discoveriesPictorial worksExhibitions. I. Jones, Harvey L. II. Holland, Katherine Church. III. Oakland Museum.

IV. Crocker Art Museum. V. National Museum of American Art (U.S.) VI. Title.

EXHIBITION CURATORS: Janice T. Driesbach and Harvey L. Jones

EDITOR: Frances Bowles

DESIGNER: Gordon Chun Design, Berkeley, California

COVER IMAGE: Charles Christian Nahl, Sunday Morning in the Mines, 1872, fig. 81

20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

Stephen C. McGough and Dennis M. Power

Harvey L. Jones, Janice T. Driesbach, and Katherine C. Holland

Janice T. Driesbach

Thomas A. Ayres and E. Hall Martin

Janice T. Driesbach and Harvey L. Jones

John Prendergast, Augusto Ferran, William McIlvaine, W. Taber, William Birch McMurtrie, Harrison Eastman, Samuel Stillman Osgood, A. G., John Henry Dunnel, Washington F. Friend, John Woodhouse Audubon, Francis Samuel Marryat, and E. Godchaux

Janice T. Driesbach

William Smith Jewett

Janice T. Driesbach

Charles Christian Nahl, Arthur Nahl, and August Wenderoth

Harvey L. Jones

Ernest Narjot and George Henry Burgess

Harvey L. Jones

A. D. O. Browere

Janice T. Driesbach

Frederick A. Butman, Alexander Edouart, and George Tirrell

Janice T. Driesbach

Charles Christian Nahl, Ernest Narjot, George Henry Burgess, Henry Bacon, and Rufus Wright

Harvey L. Jones

Katherine Church Holland

As the sesquicentennial of the discovery of gold in California approaches, it is particularly appropriate that our two California-focused institutions collaborate on an exhibition that presents and interprets the rich legacy of painting created during and about the Gold Rush.

The first public museum in continuous existence west of the Mississippi River, the Crocker Art Museum was founded by citizens lured west by Californias mineral wealth and rapid growth. Following financial success realized from the construction of the transcontinental railroad, itself hastened by the discovery of gold, Edwin Bryant Crocker and his wife, Margaret, began acquiring master paintings and drawings in Europe. They also purchased many outstanding examples created by artists working in Northern California during the early 1870s, a time when the local art communitywith its origins in the Gold Rushhad matured to become a major regional arts center, boasting an art association, numerous exhibition opportunities, and a school of design. Among Crockers perceptive acquisitions was his commission in 1872 of Charles Christian Nahls Sunday Morning in the Mines, a potent moral allegory that came to embody the Gold Rush in the minds of many, despite having been created two decades after the events depicted. The many paintings by Nahl and other early California artistsamong them, Norton Bush, Thomas Hill, and William Keithpurchased by the Crockers established a collecting focus for the museum that has since been strengthened by important additions.

The Oakland Art Gallery, founded in 1916, combined with two other museums to become the Oakland Museum of California. Since 1969, the museum has charted a distinctive course in its focus on the art, history, and natural science of California. In addressing this rich regional heritage, visionary leaders brought together an impressive collection of California art that includes strong holdings by many of the artists active during and following the Gold Rush. In the museums collections are paintings that superbly document the range of well-known artists such as William Smith Jewett and the Nahl brothers, as well as rare examples by largely undiscovered talents, such as E. Hall Martin and John Prendergast.

These resources offer an excellent opportunity to study the art of the Gold Rush, which, despite pioneering publications by Jeanne Van Nostrand, Dr. Joseph A. Baird Jr., and others, remains a largely overlooked era in American art. The accomplishments of the Hudson River school, the early genre painters in the East and Midwest, and the realist artists who emerged after the Civil War have been widely studied, but the contemporaneous painted record of Californias early notables, culture, and landscape has not been similarly explored. As with other events precipitated by James Marshalls discovery of gold in the American River east of Sacramento in January 1848, developments in the art of California had an influence beyond the geographic limits of the goldfields and the surrounding communities at that time and for decades thereafter. Art of the Gold Rush seeks to share both the quality and diversity of this artistic record, and to explore its contributions in documenting and interpreting this fascinating period.

We would like to recognize the work of the curators, Janice T. Driesbach of the Crocker Art Museum and Harvey L. Jones of the Oakland Museum of California, for their partnership in organizing this exhibition and writing this book, to which Katherine Church Holland has made a splendid contribution in writing the biographies of the artists. Their research has been assisted by the generosity of other private collectors and public institutions in Northern California. The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley, and the California Historical Society, in particular, offered critical support to Art of the Gold Rush by making significant loans to the exhibition and providing extensive research assistance. Katherine Holland, formerly at the California Historical Society, and Charles Faulhaber, director, and William Roberts of the Bancroft Library were instrumental to the realization of the exhibition and its accompanying publication.