California Scene Painting, also known as Southern California Regionalism, is a form of American regionalist art depicting landscapes, places, and people of California. It flourished from the 1920s to the 1960s.
History
Early 20th century California artists interested in everyday images and themes from the state's 19th century history provided the foundation for the emergence of the regional genre of California Scene Painting. The term was attributed to Los Angeles art critic Arthur Millier,[1][2][3] and it referred to watercolors, oil paintings and mosaics of landscapes and scenes of everyday life,[3][4] such as mountain and coastal scenery, pastoral agricultural valleys, and dynamic cities and highways.[1][2][5] Varying in style and subject, California Scene Painting was influenced by a range of precursor styles, notably Impressionism (particularly California Impressionism), Cubism, and Realism.[6]