Edwin Deakin at the Crocker
Downtown Sacramento Museum Shows Work of a California Painter
The Crocker Art Museum – located in downtown Sacramento – will host Edwin Deakin: California Painter of the Picturesque, beginning January 26. The exhibit offers vivid still-lifes, quiet landscapes and intricate architectural studies from around the Golden State, that show the unique romantic style of the turn-of-the-century artist.
“The Crocker Art Museum is one of the primary sources for the study and appreciation of the art of California,” said exhibition curator Scott A. Shields in a museum press release. “It is thus exceptionally appropriate that the museum should exhibit the work of a premier, yet under-recognized artist, Edwin Deakin.”
The upcoming exhibit is a career-spanning tribute including nearly 50 paintings, some of which depict recognizable scenes of Lake Tahoe and Yosemite.
The artist's depictions of each California mission, from San Diego de Acalá in the south to San Francisco Solano near the bay will also be on display. Widely recognized as his crowning achievement, the 21 missions typify Deakin's picturesque, romantic style by showing the grace and unassuming beauty of these precious architectural icons.
Deakin was not a California native, but was born in Sheffield, England in 1838. After moving to San Francisco in 1870, Deakin spent most of his artistic career painting and drawing in the bay area. His style deviates from many of his contemporaries who favored a more grandiose stylistic influence. According to Conaty, however, Deakin shared a studio with California artist Samuel Marsden Brookes, so those who appreciate Deakin may like Brookes as well.
According to communications specialist Kathleen Conaty from the Crocker Art Museum, Deakin visited the Crocker Art Gallery once in 1888. She said that visit was three years after Margaret Crocker donated the gallery building and its collections to the citizens of Sacramento. Deakin reportedly mentioned after that visit that “the city possessed . . . a great treasure in such a property.”
The Crocker Art Museum is located at 216 O Street in Sacramento, CA. It began in 1885 as the Crocker Art Gallery and displayed a collection of approximately 700 paintings and around 1,344 master drawings. The museum has since grown to house a permanent collection of more than 14,000 works of art, including one of the state's premier collections of California art, a world-renowned collection of master drawings, and rapidly growing Asian art and International Ceramics collections.
With less than four percent of the permanent collection on view at any one time because of space limitations, the museum constantly rotates artwork through its galleries. When an expansion is completed in 2010, which will triple the available space, approximately 20 percent of the collection will be on view.
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