Louis Aston Knight was born in Paris, son of highly successful American expatriate painter Daniel Ridgeway Knight.  An outdoorsman at heart, Aston Knight fled the urban ateliers of Paris, moving to Normandy with his wife around 1907.  It was at this time that Knight began painting thatched cottages beside the flowering streams of his home.  He went to such lengths to capture the effects of natural light on water that a 1907 Scribner’s Magazine article nicknamed him “The Man in the High-Water Boots” for his practice of painting in the shallows on the stream itself. The following decade Knight moved to an old Normandy mill once owned by the poet Chateaubriand and, inspired by the gardens of Monet, create a pastoral garden legacy that he would name Diana’s Cottage. 

In 1923, Knight moved to California and painted views of San Francisco, Santa Monica and the Monterey Peninsula. California Flowers, Holmby Hills is an exceptional example of his California views and is a rare work as it is painted in Holmby Hills, between Beverly Hills and Bel-Air. Reminiscent of Knight’s landscape views from Paris, Normandy and Rouen, California Flowers is unique in this phase of Knight’s production because of its flowering vista, probably dating it to shortly after his arrival. A profusion of colorful blooms fills the foreground of the composition, differing from his French garden views only with its American flora. Beyond this wild garden, a green valley recedes into the distance, dotted with lush groves and California mission-style houses.  The golden light and brilliant color of Knight’s French period is carried over into the work, as is his firm drawing, consistent with his principle that “the drawing is what counts.”   This commitment to drawing is balanced with a lively, almost impressionistic brushwork that adds to the cheerful sensation of an abundant and vigorous nature.

 

William Wendt’s paintings epitomize the plein-air style for which California impressionists are so revered. Wendt was a founding member of the California Art Club, and served as its president for six years. "Mountain Willow" is one of Wendt's exceptional paintings, dated 1927. "Mountain Willow" is a view of California that could be found today. Spring seems to have been William Wendt's favorite time of year in California. With Spring the deep green hills and trees and the bright orange California poppies arrive. Here Wendt uses the poppies as a sea of orange, painted with his characteristic blocked brush. The back lit tree in the center of the painting is a glistening focal point surrounded by the brilliantly composed shapes of green, blue sky with white clouds and orange. William Wendt deliberately places each shape and color with heavily laden brush in his signature painterly style. This fall the Laguna Art Museum will present a William Wendt exhibition with an accompanying book written by renowned art historian Will South.