Paul J. Karlstrom and Susan Ehrlich Turning the Tide: Early Los Angeles Modernists 1920-1956, Barry M. Heisler Introduction Santa Barbara Museum of Art 1990
Henrietta Shore (1880-1963), 1990, 1933, 1928, 1927, 1920, 1916, 1915, 1914, 1913
""Shore . . . realizes a fusion of her own ego with a deep universality . . . When she paints a flower she IS that flower, when she draws a rock she IS that rock." [Edward Weston, 1933]
"The youngest of seven children, Shore was born in Toronto, Canada on 22 January 1880. In her early teens she decided to become an artist when in a prophetic moment she perceived herself and nature to be intimately wed: "I was on my way home from school and saw myself reflected in a puddle. It was the first time I had seen my image completely surrounded by nature, and I suddenly had an overwhelming sense of belonging to it-of actually being part of every tree and flower. I was filled with a desire to tell what I felt through painting."
"After this revelation, Shore embarked upon a concerted study of painting, training first with Toronto artist Laura Muntz and then with William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri in New York City. Henri's vitalist views, which regarded art as a spiritual force . . .
"In 1913, beguiled by travels along the Pacific Coast, Shore immigrated to Los Angeles. By the following year she had established herself within the art community and was earning commendations from Los Angeles Times critic Anthony Anderson. This recognition, buttressed by silver medals in 1914 and 1915 at the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, encouraged her to join with her friend Helena Dunlap and a few other artists in founding the Los Angeles Modern Art Society in 1916. . . .
" . . . [She returned to New York in 1920 where she remained for three years] . . .
" . . . "To be true to nature one must abstract. Nature does not waste her forms. If you would know the clouds-then study the rocks. Flowers, shells, rocks, trees, mountains, hills-all have the same forms within themselves used with endless variety."
"In her aim to express universals in nature, Shore reveals her Symbolist roots. As such she shows an accord with Symbolist heirs Paul Klee and Vasily Kandinsky as well as with the American modernists Arthur Dove and Georgia O'Keeffe. Like Dove and O'Keeffe, Shore felt an intuitive bond with nature, whose vitalism she aimed to evoke in synoptic pictorial form . . .
"It also relates to the ethos of Agnes Pelton and Edward Weston who harbored similar aspirations . . . Allies in spirit, Shore and Weston shared a purist aesthetic that sought to portray quintessentials in nature. . . .
" . . .
"Back in Southern California in 1923, Shore operated a diner, the Studio Inn, where she displayed her works . . . In 1927, she was awarded one-woman shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and at the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego. The next year brought solo exhibitions at the Brick Row Gallery and Jake Zeitlin's Bookstore in Los Angeles . . . By [1931], Shore, following Weston's example, had moved from Los Angeles to the Northern California coast town of Carmel.
". . . Work in the mid-1930s on murals in Santa Cruz and Monterey for the Treasury Relief Arts Project . . ."