Painting Post: California Watercolors [feedly]

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California Watercolors
// Gustaf Tenggren

From his first years as an illustrator, watercolours had been the major painting method for Gustaf Tenggren . All the artists he admired had worked in the same media: Carl Larsson, John Bauer, Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, to mention a few. He and was a member of the American Watercolor Society along with many of his colleagues within commercial art, and as them, he had learned to master the technique to perfection. The paintings were very accurate and meticulously rendered down to the tiniest detail.

Laguna Beach 1936
Collection of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

But after his arrival in Los Angeles in early spring 1936, he seems to have become aware of an alternate, looser and more vivid watercolor style. He started to make free-air painting excursions in the neighbourhoods; Hollywood and Wilmington, Laguna Beach and even to Catalina Island. Walt Disney himself bought a Catalina landscape from Tenggren in 1938.

Gustaf Tenggren painting at Catalina Island 1937

Catalina Landscape 1936

The California Watercolor Society was very influential, including members as Mary Blair and Lee Blair. Gustaf Tenggren and Mary Blair never met while working at Disney's Studio; Mary Blair started in April 1940 while Tenggren left the studio in January 1939. But it's likely that Tenggren saw the works of Mary and Lee Blair at the California Watercolor Society's yearly exhibition. In fall 1939, Tenggren exhibited paintings at The Los Angeles County Fair Art exhibition where also Lee Blair had paintings, so a good guess is that they knew each other.

Hollywood 1937
Collection of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

In the same way that the climate made both Gustaf and Mollie Tenggren more happy and relaxed, it helped o vitalize Tenggren's imagery and added yet a style to his visual toolbox. It might also have helped to loosen up his painting all over; a change of style is clearly visible in his post-Disney works.