Oakland Museum of California Shows 'The Art of Arthur & Lucia Mathews'

Tuesday, 21 November 2006 10:07

Oakland, CA - The Oakland Museum of California presents California as Muse: The Art of Arthur & Lucia Mathews, a major retrospective of the signature artworks, furnishings, and decorative objects by the couple considered among the outstanding California artists of the twentieth century.  The exhibition runs through Sunday, March 25, 2007.

Organized by Harvey L. Jones, senior curator of art, California as Muse includes nearly 150 works by Arthur Frank Mathews and Lucia Kleinhans Mathews, creators of what has come to be known as the California Decorative Style, a unique fusion of artistic European influences at the turn of the last century and the ideals of the International Arts and Crafts movement— in a California setting.

The exhibition includes the Mathewses’ light-filled landscapes, murals, and stained glass, carved frames and furniture, graphic design and illustrations, and decorative pieces.  More than two-thirds of the objects are from the museum’s collection.

“Arthur and Lucia Mathews are among the most important rediscoveries from a long list of neglected California artists,” said Jones, “a result of (belated) attention from scholars and collectors to the art history of California.  It has become the privilege of the Oakland Museum of California to maintain the artists’ visibility.”

Arthur (1860-1945) was born in Wisconsin; Lucia (1870-1955) was a native San Franciscan.  The couple met in 1893 at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, in San Francisco, where Arthur served as director and teacher.  Lucia was enrolled in his women’s life class.  Arthur was by then an established artist who had studied in Paris, where in 1886 he won the first Grand Gold Medal to be awarded at the Académie Julian in several years.  Lucia had spent a year at Mills College before coming to the Institute.  They married in 1894 and toured Europe in 1898-99, returning to San Francisco so Arthur could resume his teaching duties.