Carmel Art Association
Carmel-by-the-Sea · Carmel
One of California's oldest artist cooperative galleries, presenting rotating exhibitions of painting, sculpture, and printmaking by member artists rooted in the Carmel landscape tradition.
Carmel-by-the-Sea is one of the most concentrated gallery destinations on the California coast - a small village of fewer than 4,000 permanent residents with more than 100 galleries within its square mile, making it, by some measures, the highest gallery-to-resident ratio of any community in the United States. The Carmel Art Association, founded in 1927 by a group of painters that included William Ritschel and Paul Whitman, is the oldest cooperative gallery in California and remains one of the most important institutions for plein air and California Impressionist painting in the state. The surrounding Big Sur coastline and the Carmel Valley have been drawing painters since the early 20th century, and the quality of California coastal light has sustained a plein air tradition here that is among the strongest in the American West.
Carmel-by-the-Sea · Carmel
One of California's oldest artist cooperative galleries, presenting rotating exhibitions of painting, sculpture, and printmaking by member artists rooted in the Carmel landscape tradition.
Carmel-by-the-Sea · Carmel
A respected gallery in the heart of Carmel representing established California painters and sculptors, with a particular strength in representational and plein air work.
Gallery Carmel-by-the-Sea · Carmel
The premier photography gallery on the West Coast, specializing in vintage prints and modern masters - including Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, and Imogen Cunningham - in the art village of Carmel.
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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.