Fall - 2022

95 YEARS OF ART Celebrating an Association That Shaped Carmel B Y AME L I A WARD T his year marks the 95th anniversary of the Carmel Art Association (CAA)—the second oldest continuously operating artist cooperative in the nation and the oldest west of the Mississippi— and to celebrate this milestone, a 95th anniversary his- toric exhibition and sale benefiting the CAA, entitled “95Years,” is taking place both in the gallery and online. Art is at the very root of the development of Carmel, and throughout the city’s history the CAA and its mem- bers have been at center stage. It is impossible to discuss the CAA’s legacy without an examination of Carmel’s history—the two are inextricably intertwined—as without the artist members of the CAA, the city’s trajectory would’ve been quite different. The Carmel Mission drew artists to the area long before Frank Powers and the Carmel Development Company began selling land here around the turn of the century, though his wife, the painter Jane Gallatin Powers, was responsible for a large influx of painters in her time. It began in 1875, when Jules Tavernier, drawn to paint the ruins of the Carmel Mission, moved to Monterey and set up the area’s first art studio. Elizabeth Strong (who was later to be a founding mem- ber of the CAA) was the first professional female artist to paint here, coming in the summer of 1878, when she shared studio space with Tavernier. “The Old Master of California,” William Keith, and Raymond Dabb Yelland both came in the 1870s to paint regularly as well, with many other artists following suit. Artists, poets, writers and thespians found inspiration in the ruined adobes, drifting fog, rugged coastline and haunting forms of the Monterey cypress trees. Some came to visit, while others set up camp per- manently, but it was the earthquake of 1906 that displaced so many from 102 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • F A L L 2 0 2 2 The Carmel Art Association has been at its current location on Dolores Street between Fifth and Sixth since 1933. Photos: Courtesy of the Carmel Art Association Jennie V. Cannon