Docent-Led Tour of "California: The Art of Water" Exhibit (10/16)

DAASV is pleased to bring you private, docent-led tours of three important exhibitions of California and Western art. Three Bay Area museums have brought together exhibits of the historic West, of the work of an important California artist showcasing the Southwest, and of a wide range of artists illustrating the history of water in California. The third of these is the "California: The Art of Water" exhibit at the Cantor Museum of Art.

This unique exhibition draws together an enormous collection of artistic portrayals of California’s most precious resource, water. Featuring more than 50 works made by eminent artists and photographers, California: The Art of Water explores objects made over the last two centuries that helped to shape ideas about water in California. It includes pictures of pristine waterways in the wilderness and depictions of the immense and growing system of waterworks that the state’s towns, cities and agriculture required—titanic dams and aqueducts that ran for hundreds of miles. The exhibition links visions of natural beauty and progress with depictions of places where patterns of water use created devastation.

California has one of the largest and most complex water systems in the world and images have played a central role in its creation. The erratic distribution of water—abundant in the north, scarce in the south, sometimes plentiful, sometimes in deep drought—challenged those who saw, bought and produced works of art. Artists and photographers who portrayed California in the second half of the 19th century found a state that was very different from the places they had left in the east. In a landscape where fresh water was precious, they created depictions of well-watered farms and communities, and locales in the Sierra that abounded with rivers, lakes and streams.

In recent decades, increasing numbers of artists and photographers have been willing to reveal California as a place where water resists human control. Their works show a land of droughts, inundations, and ravaged environments that embody the Gold Rush mentality towards water that took root during the 1850s. These images bear witness to the fact that most of the state’s historic water practices are no longer sustainable. Looking towards a future of escalating challenges over a critical resource, California: The Art of Water simultaneously depicts the historic beauty of California’s water resources and raises urgent questions about the human relationship with water in the state.