Anni Baldbaugh was given a
retrospective exhibition in the gallery in 1954. Otto Schneider
was also given a retrospective exhibition in the gallery in June
1954.
In June 1954, twenty-five
Art Guild members painted more than forty murals for San Diego County
Hospital. The paintings were from 2'x 4', to 4' x 8'.
Mrs. Pearle Miller, social
service department director at SD county Hospital said: "You
just can't realize what these pictures mean to children ill and
away from home. The children love them." Participating in the
project were Jane Ahring, Clark Allen, Belle Baranceanu, Carol Bradbury,
Ed Churchman, Isabelle Churchman, Dan Dickey, Ethel Greene, Linda
Lewis, Pamela McIntire, Herbert Minshall, Jean Swiggett, Phyllis
Wallen, Eleanor Wilkevich, and Ellamarie Woolley.
Appraising the San Diego art
scene in 1954, George Sorenson, former Guild President and chairman
of the department of Fine Arts at San Diego State College (today
University), published a survey of eighteen art organizations, their
growth and activities in the local press. All of these organizations
were founded by or with the help of members of the Art Guild. The
membership in these groups totaled over 5,000 individuals. Many
of these organizations remain operative today, although some name
changes have occurred in time.
Questions raised about how
the art for Guild exhibitions was selected continued to promote
an ongoing lively discussion. In 1955 the Guild began a new procedure
for this selection. The following excerpts from two of several letters
written by Jane Fletcher, Secretary of the Art Guild, reflect this
new direction.
Millard Sheets, Director of
the Los Angeles County Art Institute, received a letter, dated January
29, 1955, and Mrs. Herbert Chouinard, President of the Chouinard
Art Institute in Los Angeles, received a similar letter dated April
6, 1955.
"Each year the San Diego
Art Guild presents four competitive membership exhibition at the
Fine Arts Gallery, Balboa Park… As with all our exhibitions,
we invite jurors to help us maintain a high aesthetic level and
to recognize particularly noteworthy pieces.
We have tried recently, with
very satisfying results, a new method of selecting jurors for our
shows. It is our hope that you will be able to help us. Instead
of inviting jurors on an individual basis, we are now inviting them
through a recognized university or school of art.
It is our desire to ask you,
… to invite for us three members of your faculty to serve as
jurors for our forthcoming show. Our Board has voted $30 for the
jury to defray expenses.
Jurors are invited to bring
along a representative example of their work to be hung with the
exhibition. We invite jurors to do this because in the Gallery,
visitors and Guild members are all very much interested in their
jury, and feel that this constitutes a very real way of getting
to know them…."
Barney Reid, President of
the Guild wrote this letter to Mrs. Marcy on March 25, 1955:
"During this past year
as president of the San Diego Art Guild it has been brought to my
attention that some few townspeople and Guild members have entertained
a belief that they were discriminated against in the Guild exhibitions
at the Fine Arts Gallery. I do not feel that the facts will bear
this out.
The Guild subscribes to two
basic precepts: the recognition and stimulation of all manner of
good art and the rewarding of creative artists (whether professional
or amateur) with the privilege of exhibiting at the Fine Arts Gallery
as members of the Guild. We feel we would be shirking our responsibility
to the Fine Arts Society, the Fine Arts Gallery, the townspeople
and ourselves if we maintained less than strict quality restrictions
for our exhibitions. We subscribe to no particular school of expression--all
are represented in our membership and our exhibitions.
The Guild recognizes its role
as a civic organization and has always invited all artists to become
members. The procedure is a simple one; the prospective member obtains
a Guild membership application form… this filled out and submitted
along with unidentified examples of the applicant's work (may be
painting, crafts, prints, sculpture, drawing, or any combination
of these). Our Credentials Committee meets once a month to screen
the applications for membership. Acceptance or rejection for membership
is based entirely upon the quality of the work submitted. In the
event of a rejection the applicant is so informed and invited to
apply again at a later date…
Previous to the installation
of any Guild exhibition (except the All-Membership Show) a panel
of invited and paid out of town jurors screen the work for quality
and in particular instances recognize outstanding pieces with cash
awards furnished by individual donors, the Guild and/or the Fine
Arts Society. At no time does the Guild, the Gallery, or the Fine
Arts Society determine what will go into or be rejected from any
of our exhibitions. A representative of both the Guild and the Gallery
meet with the jury but all decisions as to quality and awards are
the exclusive responsibility of the jurors…
It is reasonable to expect
that all people will not subscribe to all phases of any organization.
We feel our setup regarding membership and exhibitions is as democratic
as it can be and still fulfill our responsibility and obligation
to the community.
Since the Guild is in fact
a part of the Fine Arts Society I feel that you should be completely
informed of our procedures regarding membership and the administration
of our exhibitions."
In the April 13, 1955 Bulletin,
Barney Reid wrote this in his President's Report.
"The Guild is in a particularly
fortunate situation for the greatest realization of its aims. It
is an integral part of a three-way coordinated organization of the
Fine Arts Society, the Fine Arts Gallery, and the San Diego Art
Guild…Being identified as an artist indicated that the individual
has developed a heightened aesthetic sensibility to the world around
him and to the more intangible realm of the emotions and the intellect…
It is also our responsibility as Guild members to contribute at
the highest possible level to each of our four regularly scheduled
annual exhibitions…It is only fitting that in order to provide
more space and time at the Gallery for traveling and invited exhibitions--which
is a primary responsibility of a progressive gallery and art society--that
we give some thought to curtailing our own exhibition program. This
is a situation that the Guild will be confronted with in the not
too distant future and one in which we should be giving some thought
now."
Margaret Price gave a luncheon
talk on "Art of San Diego" held in conjunction with the
Guild's All-Media exhibit in March 1955.
The Evening Tribune on May
8, 1955 published this very telling article:
Barbs from an Artist (John Zane interviewed by columnist
Naomi Baker)
"…Artists and their
product seem to be a natural part of daily community life in some
parts of the world, but not in San Diego nor in most sections of
the country.'
'Support for art groups seems
to be largely a manner of string tied gratuities from certain wealthier
citizens. Support does not come except in small dribbles from the
general public….'
'People still have emotional
reactions to the world they live in and still enjoy having those
reactions reflected for them in drama, music, architecture or fiction.
Why this apathy to art?'
It seems to me that the fault
lies squarely at the feet of the artists. They no longer paint for
the people. They paint for one another....
But even the painters-painting-for-other-painters
idea is an oversimplification. There are internal struggles among
the artists. We find not all painters speak the same visual language.
Only some of the artists speak to some of the other artists. There
are groups, which cannot or will not speak to some others.
Academic painters have a flair
for scorning abstractionists, and the non-objective brush wielders
are much to lofty to waste a fie on the academicians. Some painters
believe they feel more deeply than those who believe of themselves
they see more clearly. They all to varying degrees deal in a highly
complex set of personalized visual symbology, which in itself bars
all or most communication with other humans, even artists.
If artists are once again
to become a meaningful part of the community it seems to me that
they will have to make the overtures…
While objective artists hurl
insults at the non-objective ones, the public says: 'A curse on
both your houses.' Or perhaps even sadder, the public saves its
curses for something more important, and completely ignores the
steadily simmering little art pot."
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