In 1933 another offshoot of the Guild formed called the San Diego Moderns. Its membership included Dorr Bothwell, Donal Hord, Everett Gee Jackson, Katherine Morrison Kahle, Ivan Messenger, Ruth Ortlieb, Marius and Margot Rocle, Ruth Townsend, Amy Jo Heyneman, and Foster Jewell. They held their first show at the Fine Arts Gallery in February 1933. Although both Hord and Jackson were members of the Contemporary Artists, the San Diego Moderns were the first local artists to challenge the concepts of traditional academic art.

     Following a trend to offer different prizes for different categories of painting, conservative, centrist, and progressive, the Art Guild offered center, left, and right prizes for their exhibition in 1934. Maurice Braun, a long time advocate of conservative styles, won the right prize.

     In 1934, Evelyn Cavanee, Caroline Van Everan, Elizabeth Sherman, and Mary Gordon Volkman formed a group of Guild artists called Two by Two. They exhibited at the museum and two of the members considered themselves radical and the other two conservative.
The ongoing debate about modern art heated up during the thirties, with many Guild members at first opposed to the non-representational style of art. This struggle reached a head within the Guild, in the late 40's early 50's and has since been resurrected, hopefully for the last time, today.

     Another offshoot from the Guild called Los Surenos was founded in 1934 to preserve the early atmosphere of California by Mrs. G. W. Fisher and Mrs. Martha Jones. Its membership included Hazel Shoven, Leda Klauber, Maurice Braun, Alfred Mitchell, Haidee Kenyon, Mary Belle Williams, and Isabel Schultz Churchman. Their first meeting was held in the historic Casa Pedrorena House in Old Town. They maintained a gallery there for three years.

     Artists were among the hardest hit by the Depression. Franklin Roosevelt established public art programs through the W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration). Several Guild artists were among the beneficiaries of the Public Works of Art Project. They included Charles Reiffel, Dorr Bothwell, Donal Hord, Foster Jewell, Elliot Torrey, Sarah Truax, Charles Fries, and others. They only received a mere $42 a month, then barely a subsistence wage, but it allowed them the freedom to create in dignified poverty.

An article published in the San Diego Sun, February 14, 1934 described this program:
C.W.A. Is Art Patron
Nine San Diego Artists
On Government Payroll

Projects Under Way Here As Part Of 'New Deal'; Work
To Be Shown In Schools.

     "Along with a lot of other time-honored traditions, Mr. Roosevelt and his new deal have blasted the ancient tradition that artists must starve to be great.
     In fact Roosevelt has said upon several occasions that three squares a day is probably the greatest incentive the gentlemen who live in garrets and cellars could have.
     And so, with a wave of his hand, or whatever a man does when he spends a few million dollars, the President ordered the Civil Works Administration to become a patron of the arts.
Nine On Roll Here
     Nine San Diegans are among the 1,500 men and women artists in every state in the union on government payrolls, working in crayons, water color, oils and marble under the first democratic government ever to become art conscious….
Donal Hord is working on three different projects at his studio in his home…. One is a figure of a farmer holding a sheaf of wheat, the second a bas-relief of CCC workers and the third a fountain figure.
Is Doing Panel
     Hord's wife, Dorr Bothwell is doing a panel painting representing a scene in the southwest.
     Charles Reiffel… already has completed a 40 by 50 inch painting portraying a scene in the Cuyamaca Mountains….
     Mrs. Ruth Whitaker is doing a panel painting….
     Mrs. Esther Stevens Barney… is working on a landscape scene.
Painting Indians
     Mrs. F. B. Hanks is engaged at her studio…in a two-panel painting, one of an Indian and child, and the other of Fra Junipero Serra.
     Elliot Torrey…is working on a landscape painting portraying a group of children.
     Belle Baranceanu in working on a mural, which will be, placed in one of San Diego's public buildings.
     This idea of helping artists was first promulgated when hundreds were driven by depression into breadlines.
Show American Trend
     The new art works show a distinctly American trend with realism as its guiding principle. Many record the more inspiring public works projects. Whether there will grow out of the adventure a new American folk art will be known when critics view the first exhibit in Washington next May of the best works selected from the 16 regional centers."

     This work was exhibited at the Fine Arts Gallery, and then some of the work went on to exhibit in the Los Angeles museum in 1934.

     In 1933, Cornelia Plaister, city librarian, sponsored the first San Diego outdoor Art Mart. It was held on the lawn of the downtown Public Library on E street. These Art Marts continued for many years to come.
     During this period of growth within the structure of the Fine Arts Society, the Guild as a separate organization began to experience some difficulties in what exactly their relationship with the Fine Arts Society was. During a Guild meeting, with 54 members present, in October 1932, they voted to be governed by the Constitution and bylaws and officers of the Fine Arts Society.
     As a further amalgamation within the Fine Arts Society, this letter was written to all Guild members by Sarah Truax, Secretary dated October 23, 1933.

     "From a desire to have the benefit of the best thought of the Guild upon matters of common interest, certain prominent workers in the Guild were asked by some of the officers of the Fine Arts Society to confer with them. In selecting this group of Guild members, an effort was made to choose a large enough group to contain a well-balanced proportion of representatives of the various schools of art thought within the Guild, and yet not to large to work efficiently as an advisory committee. The Fine Arts Society officers have been well pleased with its relations established with this group, and expect to call upon it for its opinion from time to time. However, this group -- as a committee -- occupies rather an anomalous position, in that it has no status as yet recognized by the Guild. Some of the Guild members believe that such a Committee, in forming a closer point of contact with the government of the Fine Arts Society, if it had proper status, could be of great value to the Guild in enabling the Guild to participate more largely and freely in matters affecting Guild relations with the Fine Arts Society, and that it could increase the scope of the Guild's activities as well as its strength. To enable the Committee so to function, it must first be endorsed by the Guild membership and its decisions be considered as having been endorsed as official acts of the Guild. The matter is therefore hereby submitted to the Guild membership for its vote…."

     Several Guild members, like Everett Gee Jackson, James Tank Porter, Dayton Brown, Alfred Mitchell, Alice Klauber, Milford Ellison, etc. regularly gave talks at the Fine Arts Gallery and their show openings were a highlight of the social season. The Guild also held annual art auctions.

     In 1934 the local tax assessor declared that unsold works of art in the possession of the artists were eligible for taxation. Several paintings of Charles Reiffel were seized and the incident became fuel for the local media. Charles informed the press that he had no intention of reclaiming the seized artwork and stated in the San Diego Sun, October 31, 1934: "Let him try to sell 'em… He'll do better than the artists themselves." Artists were outraged and although the Board of Supervisors refused to adopt a resolution requesting that assessor James H. Johnson cease the practice, most artists ignored the assessor's deputies. The issue was heavily debated and by the end of 1934 this issue of unfair taxation was quietly resolved.

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