We’ve just finished hanging Beloved California X. One of the painters featured is James McGrew. I especially love his 11″ x 14″ painting of this beautiful bit of shoreline at Lake Tahoe. James painted it last summer when teaching at the Plein Air Convention at Reno/Lake Tahoe.
James McGrew, “Sand Harbor,” 2025. Oil on birch panel, 11″ x 14″. $2,500 framed.
This work exemplifies the subtitle of our show, “Twenty-One Painters With a Passion for Place.” James describes his strong personal connection to this sandy cove where he spent many happy days as a kid, and then as a dad swimming in the chilly, clear mountain water with his two daughters.
The frame, in beautifully figured stained quarter sawn white oak, is a 2-1/4″ wide plain slope with a sight edge chamfer leafed with white gold.
“Upper Yosemite Fall,” 8″ x 6″. $1,000 framed.
James McGrew, who’s established himself as one of the premiere painters of our national parks, will be in the Bay Area this weekend. At 2 pm this afternoon, just over the hill in Moraga, he’ll be giving a lecture at St Mary’s College Museum of Art in conjunction with their current exhibit, “Echoes of Yosemite.” Titled “Influential Brushwork: Establishment and Preservation of Yosemite National Park Through Art,” the presentation “will cover the close relationship of art with the public awareness, preservation and management of Yosemite,” and how James carries on that legacy through his own work. At right is one of James’s terrific Yosemite paintings, also featured in our show.
“Beloved California X: Twenty-One Painters With a Passion for Place” opens Saturday—tomorrow! I hope you’ll come to our reception from 2 to 4 in the afternoon and meet many of the artists, including James McGrew.
—Tim Holton
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