Selected Early California Art and History Resources
www.askart.com
The Artists’ Bluebook is an online database containing over 200,000 artists worldwide (some information can be accessed without membership). Site offers artist biographies, auction records, and references to museum works, books, and periodicals. See listing for Tilden Daken.
www.edanhughescollection.com
For over 50 years, the late Edan Hughes collected and researched the artists of early California. His book Artists in California, 1786—1940 (two volumes, 1,250 pages) contains biographies for 20,000 artists active in California before 1940. The site, maintained following his death, features Hughes’s online gallery, representing one of the largest personal collections of 18th-, 19th-, and early-20th-century California art.
www.CaliforniaArt.com
An informative site about pre-1945 California art, created by curator, writer, and California art historian Nancy Dustin Wall Moure. It contains lists and links to museums, publications, galleries, news, and events.
www.californiaartclub.com
Established in 1909, the California Art Club promotes fine arts in the fields of painting, drawing, and sculpture. The site highlights exhibitions, lectures, and publications related to art and artists of California, both past and present.
www.californiahistoricalsociety.org
The CHS holds one of the state’s richest collections of primary and secondary materials on the social, cultural, economic, and political development of California. CHS publishes a quarterly journal and offers an active public program schedule, including exhibitions, lectures and other public events.