Coastal Scene
ClassificationsPaintings-oils
Artist
Joseph Kleitsch
(Hungarian-born American, 1882-1931)
Datec. 1925
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
DescriptionThe Hungarian-born 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. 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.Kleitsch is also known for a series of paintings that record Laguna Beach 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.
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