Clarence Keiser Hinkle (June 19, 1880 – July 21, 1960) was an American painter and art educator. His art studio was in

Laguna Beach, California Laguna Beach (; ''Laguna'', Spanish for "Lagoon") is a seaside resort city located in southern Orange County, California, in the United States. It is known for its mild year-round climate, scenic coves, environmental preservation efforts, and ...

and later in

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coa ...

Early life and education

Hinkle was born on June 19, 1880, in

Auburn, California Auburn is a city in and the county seat of Placer County, California, United States. Its population was 13,776 during the 2020 census. Auburn is known for its California Gold Rush history and is registered as a California Historical Landmark. A ...

. At age 18 he studied at

Crocker Art Gallery The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest art museum in the Western United States, located in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1885, the museum holds one of the premier collections of Californian art. The collection includes American works dating f ...

under painter William Franklin Jackson. By 1900, he moved to San Francisco to study at

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximatel ...

(then known as California School of Design) with Arthur Frank Mathews. From 1901 until 1903, he enrolled in the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stud ...

and studied under

John Twachtman John Henry Twachtman (August 4, 1853 – August 8, 1902) was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes, though his painting style varied widely through his career. Art historians consider Twachtman's style of American Impr ...

and

William Merritt Chase William Merritt Chase (November 1, 1849October 25, 1916) was an American painter, known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons School of Design ...

. From 1904 until 1906, he studied at

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and Private university, private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

in Philadelphia. In May 1906, he was awarded the Cresson Scholarship, a traveling scholarship to Paris for two years of travel, and he studied at the

Académie Julian The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the numbe ...

. While studying in Paris, Hinkle was influenced by

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passa ...

and Pointillism.

Career

From 1912 until 1917, Hinkle lived in San Francisco. He moved to Los Angeles in 1917 and taught at Louise Elizabeth Garden MacLeod's Los Angeles School of Art and Design. Hinkle later taught painting and drawing at the

Chouinard Art Institute The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard (1879–1969) in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In 1961, Walt and Roy Disney guided the merger of the Chouinard Art Ins ...

from 1921 until 1935. His students included

Millard Sheets Millard Owen Sheets (June 24, 1907 – March 31, 1989) was an American artist, teacher, and architectural designer. He was one of the earliest of the California Scene Painting artists and helped define the art movement. Many of his large-scale bui ...

and

Phil Dike Phil Dike (1906-1990) was an American painter and art teacher. He painted watercolors, and he taught at Scripps College and the Claremont Graduate University. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National ...

, among others. He taught his students to experiment with their work, paint from nature, and use loose brushstrokes to capture the subject. Hinkle had a wife, Mabel Bain and she had been a former student. He had an art studio in

from 1922 to 1935, and he was a member of the Laguna Beach Art Association. Hinkle opened another studio in

in 1935. He painted landscapes, still lifes and portraits. Hinkle painted many coastal landscapes in the 1920s. Initially while living in California Hinkle worked within Impressionist style, but eventually moved in to more of an expressionistic modernist style, he is also associated with

Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction a ...

. Other early-Modernist in California include Rinaldo Cuneo,

Ray Strong Ray Stanford Strong (January 3, 1905 – July 3, 2006) was an American painter from Corvallis, Oregon. He associated with the New Deal muralists in the San Francisco Bay Area. Early life and education Ray Strong was born in Corvallis, Oreg ...

, and

Charles Reiffel Charles Reiffel (1862 - March 14, 1942) was an American lithographer and post-Impressionist painter who became "one of California's best-known painters." Life Reiffel was born in 1862 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Reiffel was initially a lithograph ...

. Hinkle was a member of the ''Group of Eight'', alongside artists Edouard Vysekal, Luvena Buchanan Vysekal,

John Hubbard Rich John Hubbard Rich (March 5, 1876 - March 30, 1954) was an American illustrator, painter and art educator. He was the president of the California Art Club from 1944 to 1945. Life Rich was born in 1876 in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied at the Ar ...

, Henri De Kruif,

Donna N. Schuster Donna N. Schuster (born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1883) was an easel painter who created work in the style of modern impressionism using the medium of oil and watercolor. She focused her work in Wisconsin then later moved to Los Angeles, California ...

, E. Roscoe Shrader, and

Mabel Alvarez Mabel Alvarez (November 28, 1891 – March 13, 1985) was an American painter. Her works, often introspective and spiritual in nature, and her style is considered a contributing factor to the Southern California Modernism and California Impressio ...

. This ''Group of Eight'' was organized largely by Luvena Buchanan Vyeskal and Edouard Vyeskal, and the group had a basis in the progressive art movement in California.

Death and legacy

He died on July 21, 1960, in Santa Barbara, at age 80. His wife Mabel donated one of his paintings to the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...

posthumously. More than a hundred of Hinkle's paintings were left by his estate to the University of Pacific, which were sold in 1986 to a single collector in Santa Barbara. His work was acquired by the

San Diego Museum of Art The San Diego Museum of Art is a fine arts museum located at 1450 El Prado in Balboa Park in San Diego, California that houses a broad collection with particular strength in Spanish art. The San Diego Museum of Art opened as The Fine Arts Galler ...

, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the

De Young Museum The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the Legion of Ho ...

in San Francisco, and the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 196 ...

. In 2012, more than 114 of his paintings were exhibited at the

Laguna Art Museum The Laguna Art Museum (LAM) is a museum located in Laguna Beach, California, on Pacific Coast Highway. LAM exclusively features California art and is the oldest cultural institution in the area. It has been known as the Laguna Beach Art Associati ...

Exhibitions

This is a select list of notable exhibitions that featured Hinkle.

Solo exhibitions

* 1960 – ''Clarence Hinkle: 1880-1960'', solo exhibition, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California * 2012 – ''Clarence Hinkle,'' solo exhibition at Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, California

Group exhibitions

* 1922 – group exhibition with Hinkle,

Edward Weston Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." ...

, Margrethe Mather, Howard Russell Butler,

Jean Mannheim Jean Mannheim (November 18, 1863 – September 6, 1945) was a German-born American artist and educator, known for his California Impressionist paintings. He was active in Decatur, Illinois and Pasadena, California. About Jean Mannheim was ...

, Henri De Kruif, John Hubbard Rich, John Wesley Cotton,

Howell Chambers Brown Howell Chambers Brown (1880–1954) American artist and printmaker, known for engraving and etching. His work was often focused on the genre of the American West. Biography Howell Chambers Brown was born July 28, 1880, in Little Rock, Arkansas, ...

, Nellie Huntington Gere, at the MacDowell Club, Tajo Building, Los Angeles, California * 1933–1934 – ''Painting and Sculpture from 16 American Cities'', group exhibition,

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...

(MoMA), New York City, New York * 1962 – ''Clarence Hinkle and William Rohrbach'', group exhibition, Esther Bear Gallery, Santa Barbara, California * 2004 – ''Laguna Beach: Our Town in the Early 1900s'', group exhibition with Hinkle, William Wendt,

Joseph Kleitsch Joseph Kleitsch (June 6, 1882 – November 16, 1931) was a Hungarian-American portrait and plein air painter who holds a high place in the early California School of Impressionism. Biography Born in the village of Sânmihaiu Român, old H ...

, Edgar Alwin Payne, Anna Althea Hills, at Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, California * 2012 – ''Modern Spirit and the Group of Eight'', group exhibition with Hinkle, Mabel Alvarez, Henri de Kruif, John Hubbard Rich, Donna N. Schuster, E. Roscoe Shrader, Edouard Vysekal, Luvena Buchanan Vysekal, at Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, California

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hinkle, Clarence 1880 births 1960 deaths People from Auburn, California People from Laguna Beach, California People from Santa Barbara, California San Francisco Art Institute alumni Art Students League of New York alumni Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni Académie Julian alumni American portrait painters American still life painters Painters from California 19th-century American painters 20th-century American painters