An Impressionist Take on La Jolla

California Coast

The history and tradition of art in La Jolla is long and filled with extremely talented individuals. Maurice Braun was an influential impressionist painter who worked in La Jolla and around San Diego for a great part of his life. His artwork is said to have captured the life and light of Southern California in ways other artists could not. Braun also became a prominent person in the La Jolla artistic community.

Braun was born in 1877 in Hungary. His family immigrated to the New York when he was four years old. He studied fine arts at the National Academy of Design. In 1909, Maurice moved to San Diego, drawn by the landscape and the Point Loma Theosophical Society. A year later Braun founded the San Diego Academy of Art. Braun was a founding member of the La Jolla Art Association. He split his time between the East and West coasts for several years after that, painting wherever he could. In 1929 he joined the Contemporary Artists of San Diego.

The plein-air paintings of Maurice Braun shone a spotlight on San Diego, and more specifically, La Jolla. “The Jewel” shines bright and sun-drenched in his seascapes. His other landscapes fully grasp the feeling and atmosphere of the hills and trees around San Diego. Some of these landscapes could be compared to Monet’s Haystacks. It is no wonder that Maurice Braun is considered to be one of the most influential painters of his time.

Maurice Braun’s impact on the La Jolla artistic community lives on in the La Jolla Art Association and the San Diego Academy of Art. To learn more about the local art community, visit Thumbprint Gallery on Kline Street in La Jolla. The gallery is open Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 12-4pm.

Source:

http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/v54-4/pdf/v54-4Stern.pdf

http://mauricebraun.com/