Picturing California's Other Landscape is filled with works by world-renowned artists including Albert Bierstadt, William Hahn, William Keith, Maynard Dixon, Frank LaPena, Wayne Thiebaud, Ansel Adams, Robert Dawson, Dorothea Lange, Carleton Watkins, and others--however, it is far more than a beautiful art book. Using the region as a backdrop, essays by Central Valley scholars explore more general questions about art: whether photography depicts "real" landscapes or invents them; who creates art and for what purpose; how does artistic enterprise--or lack of it--shape the way in which people see their own environment.
Picturing California's Other Landscape will supplement a groundbreaking show of these paintings and other graphics at the Haggin Museum in Stockton, California (OctoberDecember 1999).