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 California’s 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 community—with its origins in the Gold Rush—had matured to become a major regional arts center, boasting an art association, numerous exhibition opportunities, and a school of design. Among Crocker’s perceptive acquisitions was his commission in 1872 of Charles Christian Nahl’s 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 artists—among them, Norton Bush, Thomas Hill, and William Keith—purchased 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 museum’s 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 California’s early notables, culture, and landscape has not been similarly explored. As with other events precipitated by James Marshall’s 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. Art of the Gold Rush has been greatly enriched by the support of numerous lenders, whose enthusiasm and willingness to share from their collections have made this exhibition and its tour possible.
Presenting sponsors for the Art of the Gold Rush exhibition and book are the Oakland Museum Women’s Board, the Crocker Art Museum Association, the California Arts Council, Christie’s, the Clorox Company Foundation, and others who prefer to remain anonymous. Major sponsors include the Barkley Fund, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, Wells Fargo, the S. H. Cowell Foundation, the Levi Strauss Foundation, the City of Sacramento, The Bernard Osher Foundation, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the L. J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation. Contributing sponsors are the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, Mr. and Mrs. Ellis Stephens, Union Bank of California, David and Lyn Anderson, Crosby Heafey Roach & May, Helen F. Novy, Albert Shumate, William F. Weeden, and other members and friends of the Oakland Museum of California.
Stephen C. McGough |
Dennis M. Power |
Director, Crocker Art Museum |
Executive Director, Oakland Museum of California |