LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. (May 3, 2023) — Laguna Art Museum presents the upcoming exhibition, Joseph Kleitsch: Abroad and At Home in Old Laguna, on view from June 24 through September 24, 2023. The exhibition will showcase the work of Joseph Kleitsch, an important California Impressionist painter born in Hungary in 1882. Kleitsch's artwork vividly captures the energy and beauty of Southern California.
“We cannot wait to welcome guests to this exhibition that touches upon every period of Joseph Kleitsch’s artistic output,” said Julie Perlin Lee, Director of Laguna Art Museum. “ More than 25 individual and organizational lenders have enthusiastically come together to bring the best of Kleitsch’s artworks together in a showing of sensuous portraits, realistic still lifes and landscape paintings that document the artist’s experimentation and growth from Impressionism to Post-Impressionism. Because of the artist’s ties to Laguna Beach, there is no venue or location more perfect than Laguna Art Museum.”
Kleitsch's early works consisted of small still-life paintings, and eventually masterful portraits with which he built his name. In 1920, Kleitsch and his wife Edna settled in Laguna Beach, where he became a member of the Laguna Beach Art Association and started painting landscapes and street scenes. Notably, Kleitsch's painting, The Old Post Office, depicts a historic view of the town's first post office located near present-day Laguna Avenue and Coast Highway.
In 1924, Kleitsch painted several works at the Mission San Juan Capistrano and created two nearly identical views of "downtown" Laguna titled Laguna Road I and Laguna Road II, showing the unpaved Coast Boulevard that was finally paved in 1926. In 1926, Kleitsch sailed to Europe, where he painted in Paris, Normandie and Claude Monet's home village of Giverny, among other places. He returned to America in 1927 after being away for twenty-two months.
Despite his untimely death at the age of forty-nine, Kleitsch's art continues to live on and his role as a chronicler of old Laguna adds to his standing among the best of California's artists.
This exhibition is generously sponsored by Thomas B. Stiles, II and Barbara Alexander, Historical Collections Council of California Art, Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Anonymous Donor, Michael, Sophia and Julia Kelley, Orange County Fine Art Storage / Display, Bonhams, Diane Nesley, Linda and Jim Freund, Joseph and Ambrose and Kevin Rowe and Irene Vlitos Rowe.
Laguna Art Museum will be producing a catalog documenting the historic exhibition, which will be available in the museum store.
For more information about Joseph Kleitsch: Abroad and At Home in Old Laguna, visit lagunaartmuseum.org. To stay connected and learn about upcoming events, follow the museum on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
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About Laguna Art Museum
Laguna Art Museum exists to engage and enlighten people of all ages through art that embodies and preserves the California experience. Laguna Art Museum presents exhibitions relevant to California art and artists throughout the year and is home to the annual Art & Nature Festival celebrating the museum's unique relationship to the environment.
For more information, please visit www.lagunaartmuseum.org
Location
Laguna Art Museum is located at 307 Cliff Drive in Laguna Beach, on the corner of Coast Highway and Cliff Drive.
Hours
Tuesday-Sunday: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Closed Mondays, except Martin Luther King Jr. Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth and Labor Day.
Closed Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day
