Where to Stay in Carmel

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California's Most Concentrated Gallery Village

Carmel's art colony was founded in the first decade of the 20th century by writers and painters who discovered the village as an affordable, beautiful alternative to San Francisco. Mary Austin, Jack London, Sinclair Lewis, and Upton Sinclair all spent time here, as did photographers Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. The Carmel Art Association, founded in 1927, is one of the oldest artist-run galleries in California and continues to present work by living artists working in the California tradition. The annual Carmel Art Festival each May is one of the most significant plein air painting events in the country, drawing artists to paint the coastline and village en plein air and offering collectors the chance to purchase fresh work directly from the artists who made it. The galleries along Ocean Avenue, Mission Street, and the surrounding blocks of the walkable village cover a range from traditional California landscape painting to contemporary photography and bronze sculpture. The proximity of Pebble Beach and the Monterey Peninsula's dramatic coastal scenery gives Carmel's landscape art an extraordinary natural subject.