The Group of Eight
From its formation in Edwin Roscoe Shrader’s studio in 1921 to its dissolution in 1928, the Group of Eight held exhibitions in several venues, including the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art in 1927. Of that exhibition, critic Antony Anderson wrote, “They are not traditional painter[s] of Southern California landscape; all of them use color freely and generously; all are more or less open to new ideas in painting; all of them paint the figure. While most of them may be described as progressive, none works in a manner which is not comprehensible to a moderately educated mind.” (Sarah Vure,"Circles of Influence", 2000, Orange County Museum of Art, p.65-66)
The Group of Eight consisted of Los Angeles artists Mabel Alvarez, Clarence Hinkle, Henri de Kruif, John Hubbard Rich, Donna Schuster, Shrader, and Edouard and Luvena Vysekal. The product of these still life and landscape artists reflects a period in California painting that straddled the edge of Impressionism and new Modernist concepts.
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