Lot 57
Joseph Kleitsch(1882-1931)Artist's Paradise (Laguna Beach) 26 1/8 x 30in framed 35 x 39in
23 November 2021, 13:00 PST
Los AngelesSold for US$100,312.50 inc. premium
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Joseph Kleitsch (1882-1931)
Artist's Paradise (Laguna Beach)
signed and inscribed 'JOSEPH KLEITSCH / LAGUNA BEACH' (lower right) and titled (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
26 1/8 x 30in
framed 35 x 39in
signed and inscribed 'JOSEPH KLEITSCH / LAGUNA BEACH' (lower right) and titled (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
26 1/8 x 30in
framed 35 x 39in
Footnotes
Provenance
Private collection, Chicago, Illinois.
Thence to the present owner, Southern California.
Joseph Kleitsch's restless nature, perceptive eye, and an appetite for color were fulfilled by the countless opportunities to paint and record. In 1922 he signed an exclusive contract for Southern California with Stendahl Galleries, ensuring regular exhibitions and giving him ample and favorable local press.
In 1926, Joseph Kleitsch felt a need to broaden his talents by traveling to Europe to seek inspiration from the traditions of the masters and their surroundings. He painted throughout Europe for two years. Upon his return in 1928, he moved to the thriving artistic community of Laguna Beach. Even then a campaign was on to preserve the village of Laguna Beach in hopes that it would continue to retain its idyllic character. Los Angeles was growing rapidly and towns that used to be separate hamlets, such as Alhambra, Fullerton, Whittier and Montebello were becoming part of one large metropolitan expanse. It was under this atmosphere that Kleitsch chose to capture scenes in and around the village and hills of Laguna. By presenting the beauty of his surroundings, the hope was to instill a broader effort to save the area's serenity. In the process we have an accurate history of what the village looked like in the 1920s, as he first painted the area as early as 1922.
As early as 1918, color and pattern had become an essential part of Kleitsch's compositions. These elements emerge even more clearly in his California pictures where he seems to return to the spirit of Hungarian painting. In 1916, the reviewer Christian Brinton described Hungarian paintings from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco as possessing "a marked degree of rhythm and a rich, vibrant harmony rarely if ever encountered elsewhere...In each [painting] you meet the same deep-rooted race spirit, the same love of vivid chromatic effect, the same fervid lyric passion". It is within these Hungarian roots that Kleitsch's interpretation of plein air painting was formed.
In the present work, Artist's Paradise, Kleitsch mixes his paints with fervor and speed in an effort to give the surface more movement and passion. In front of a house one can see figures sitting on a bench. This is a not a carefully plotted out composition, but rather a true plein air painting, executed with confidence and exemplifying the artist's emotion-filled personality. The title of the work speaks to Kleitsch's aforementioned efforts to tout Laguna Beach as the paradise that it was and still is today.