Fall - 2022

C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • F A L L 2 0 2 2 105 she helped found the California League of Fine Arts) with fellow artists and friends Pedro de Lemos, Josephine Culbertson and others, planting the seeds of the CAA. In August of 1927, armed with the information provided by Cannon, Culbertson arranged a meeting to formally discuss the creation of an art association for Carmel. She held the meeting in the home and studio she shared with fellow artist Ida Johnson, known as Gray Gables, which stood a t the corner of Lincoln and Seventh. During the meeting, a group of 18 artists and six community members formalized the association and put forward plans for the cooperative. Over a course of meetings that month, the group voted to make Pedro de Lemos presi- dent, Josephine Culbertson a vice president, and Ida Maynard Curtis the secretary. Jo Mora and George Seideneck were the first two board mem- bers elected. Membership was open to “every working artist in Carmel” and dues were set at $1 annually.The association was not a mere group of small-town artists, in a very short matter of time, it grew to include a group of highly skilled, learned and exceptional talents, a number of whom were nationally known and some, even world-renowned. Some of the most well-known early members included William Ritschel, E. Charlton Fortune, Mary DeNeale Morgan, Armin Hansen, Percy Gray, John O’Shea, Elizabeth Strong, Francis and Gene Baker McComas, Ferdinand Burgdorff, William Posey Silva, and Charles and Catherine Seideneck. The CAA’s first gallery space in 1927 was a rented second floor room in the Seven Arts Building at the corner of Ocean and Lincoln, which cost the association $30 a month. They were heartened by the attendance their group shows attracted and the success of their sales, but were Lester Boronda, “Departure of the Wedding Party,” ca. 1912, oil on canvas, 36 x 30 in. A mem- ber of one of California’s first pioneering families, Boronda made a career of painting romanticized scenes of old California. Artist Josephine Culbertson in her parlor at Gray Gables, the home and studio she shared with Ida Johnson on the corner of Lincoln and Seventh. There, in August of 1927, the Carmel Art Association was born. Photos: Courtesy of the Carmel Art Association