When these six artists first banded together in 1917, the San Francisco art establishment found their work raw and undeveloped. According to Nancy Boas, however, these painters represent the first fully evolved reflection of modern art on the West Coast. Her scholarly and engaging study is tantamount to a discovery of a previously unknown group of painters, and it is unusual in that it recounts the birth of modern art in a nonurban setting. She elegantly and convincingly balances biography with analysis, intertwining six personal stories into a much larger story, which is really about the birth of modernism, an integral segment of America's artistic heritage. These artists' works are expressive, energetic, and ablaze with vivid color, reminiscent of a quality of rarefied light found in Richard Diebenkorn's Ocean Park series or Vincent van Gogh's Arles paintings.


From Library Journal
Painters Selden Gile, August Gay, Louis Siegriest, Maurice Logan, Bernard VonEichman, and William Clapp formed the Society of Six in 1917 in northern California, where they worked and exhibited together into the 1920s. All were outdoor painters whose canvases were freely brushed, vividly colored, and influenced by both the California landscape and the European Impressionism that they saw for the first time during their active years. Boas's careful account embeds the group's work in its biographical and historical contexts and provides over 100 excellent color reproductions. An important addition to our knowledge of American art, with more than regional significance. Kathryn W. Finkelstein, M.Ln., CincinnatiCopyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Six plein-air painters in Oakland, California, joined together in 1917 to form an association that lasted nearly fifteen years. The Society of Six (Selden Connor Gile, Maurice Logan, William H. Clapp, August F. Gay, Bernard von Eichman, and Louis Siegriest)created a color-centered modernist idiom that shocked establishment tastes but remains the most advanced painting of its era in Northern California. Nancy Boas's well-informed and sumptuously illustrated chronicle recognizes the importance of these six painters in the history of American Post-Impressionism. The Six found themselves in the position of an avant garde not because they set out to reject conventionality, but because they aspired to create their own indigenous modernism. While the artists were considered outsiders in their time, their work is now recognized as part of the vital and uring lineage of American art. Depression hardship ed the Six's ascancy, but their painterliness, use of color, and deep alliance with the land and the light became a beacon for postwar Northern California modern painters such as Richard Diebenkorn and Wayne Thiebaud. Combining biography and critical analysis, Nancy Boas offers a fitting tribute to the lives and exhilarating painting of the Society of Six.

Author Bio: Nancy Boas is Adjunct Curator of American Paintings, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Charles Eldredge is Hall Distinguished Professor of American Art, Kress Foundation Department of Art History, University of Kansas.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

This oversize, attractive study examines the lives and oeuvres of six plein-air painters who worked in northern California early in this century and who called themselves the Society of Six or the Oakland SixSelden Gile, August Gay, Louis Siegriest, Maurice Logan, Bernard von Eichman and William Clapp. Tracing their development as a group under the influences of the impressionists, the San Francisco art scene and each other, freelance writer Boas provides an unpretentious and comprehensive look at these undervalued painters and, indirectly, a portrait of the emergence of California culture. Each of the artists is amply represented with selections from their extant paintings, reproduced large and, cruciallyas it was their distinguishing characteristicin full color. With affection and sensitivity, Boas details how their fates devolved through the Depression and mid-century while the group dissolved, careers floundered and friendships waned. Much commentary taken from the artists' own letters, and from interviews and reviews, is included. The narrative of these men's lives proves interesting alone, but Boas manages a fine balance of biography and critical analysis as she assesses the group's accomplishments within their own day and from history's perspective. Finally, the informal, life-loving spirit of the paintings themselves rules this book, and, often inspiring in its beauty, makes for an enriching experience. First serial to Horizon magazine, The Californians magazine and San Francisco magazine. (August)

Library Journal