Coastal Scene
ClassificationsPaintings-oils
Artist
Joseph Kleitsch
(Hungarian-born American, 1882-1931)
Datec. 1925
Made AtUnited States, North America
Place DepictedLaguna Beach, California, United States, North America
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions10 1/2 × 13 1/2 in. (26.7 × 34.3 cm)
Framed: 18 1/4 × 21 1/4 × 2 1/4 in. (46.4 × 54 × 5.7 cm)
Framed: 18 1/4 × 21 1/4 × 2 1/4 in. (46.4 × 54 × 5.7 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Estate of Paula Nelli
Object number76.36.1
DescriptionOil painting by Joseph Kleitsch titled "Costal Scene", done in impressionist manner. Primarily browns, mauves, greens, and blues. Scene over a sandy beach with a small cluster of houses on the ridge above the shore on the left. Purple hills in background, short wheat-colored grasses in foreground. This view is of the West side of Laguna Beach looking toward the now downtown with the eucalyptus grove on top of the highest hills.Joseph Kleitsch, like many artists who adopted Southern California as their home, arrived here after being active as a portraitist in Denver, Mexico and Chicago. However, once he discovered Southern California, Kleitsch spent most of the 1920s in Laguna Beach where he distinguished himself by painting beach life and scenes in and about the tiny resort village. Occasionally he essayed a pure landscape, as seen here.
The Hungarian-born Joseph Kleitsch had a studio in Laguna Beach beginning in 1920 and is celebrated as a colorist and for his portraits and interiors. He’s also known for a series of paintings that record the village in the early 1920s, as it was about to undergo development, a sort of gentrification in which many of the early buildings would be destroyed. Coastal Scene is a small plein air painting Kleitsch made while standing on a bluff overlooking the sea, and toward what would soon become the downtown area of Laguna Beach. Coast Highway, built in 1926, changed the nature of the little village.
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