Etchings at the Channing Peake Gallery

Santa Barbara Mission, etching, Henry Chapman Ford, 1883

Tradition and Transition: California Missions
Dates on view: October 29 – February 15, 2008

FREE Gallery Talks:

Wednesday, November 7, 12:15pm.
Kathi Brewster, Master Docent at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum will discuss the 1883 etchings and life of Santa Barbara artist Henri Chapman Ford.

Tuesday, November 13, 12:15pm.
Leonardo Nuñez, a contemporary Lompoc artist, will discuss the inspiration for his contemporary series of California Mission etchings.

Location: Channing Peake Gallery, 1st Floor of the County Administration Building,
105 E. Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara, Ca 93101
Gallery Hours: Mon.-Fri., 8am-6pm

About the Exhibition:

Tradition and Transition: The California Missions, at the Channing Peake Gallery, from October 29 through February 15, 2008, provides a contrast of two artists’ etching collections: Henry Chapman Ford (1828 -1894) and contemporary artist, Leonardo Nuñez, who both recorded their views of the California Missions. Ford printed all these etchings in 1883, and Nuñez completed his etchings in 1999.

Born in Livonia, New York, Henry Chapman Ford studied art in Paris and Florence. When he returned to the US, he served in the Civil War; and provided sketches for the illustrated press. Upon discharge, he worked as Chicago’s first professional landscape painter, (where many of his early works were destroyed in a fire at the Academy of Design), before settling in Santa Barbara in 1875 for health reasons. Traveling by horse and buggy, Ford sketched and painted each of the twenty-one California mission sites, and published this series, Etchings of the Franciscan Missions, in 1883, and exhibited them in 1893 at the Chicago World’s Fair. Fifty sets were printed and sold for $150. a set. Each set included a 28-page text, written by the artist, about the missions. Ford’s depictions of California missions spurred a revival of interest in the state’s Spanish heritage, and were in part responsible for the restoration of many mission sites. Ford taught and painted at his studio until he died in 1894 in Santa Barbara. The Henry Chapman Ford collection is on loan from the Museum of Ventura County’s permanent collection, a gift of John Broome.

Missions of Alta California (1996-1999) was a project inspired by research into the history of La Purísima Mission, which Leonardo Nuñez, an award-winning artist and resident of Lompoc, illustrated in a large scale mural (41’ x 13’) for the City of Lompoc in 1995. He grew up near this mission, exploring the mysterious buildings and enjoying their tranquility while he was young. While researching for the mural he encountered reproductions of the early California mission etchings made by Henry Chapman Ford. The etchings captured the missions’ beauty, and also the loneliness and desolation of these sacred places built by the native people of California. The etchings, however, represented the missions in their state of deterioration. Many of the missions fell into complete ruin after Ford’s etchings were made, along with the dreams the missionaries had for their doomed communities. Today the missions are restored, some more accurately and completely than others, but together they preserve an important part of our New World heritage.

The etchings in Leonardo Nuñez’ series are original images created in the same manner as those of Henry Chapman Ford, and were done as a compliment to his work. They are a contemporary documentation of historical monuments representing a people’s willingness to co-operate with an alien culture in order to survive the catastrophic changes to the land they loved and preserved. The Leonardo Nuñez collection has been purchased through the Bonita McFarland Trust for the Ventura Museum.

Santa Barbara Mission, etching, Leonardo Nunez, 1999

From the arrival of the Franciscans in 1769, to the secularization of the missions by the Mexican government in 1834, the Mission Period of California history is rich with complexity. While the Spanish were successful in their goal of building missions and colonizing coastal California, their success came at an unimaginable cost to the indigenous population. While we may appreciate the mission architecture the Spanish left behind, we can only regret the irretrievable loss of much indigenous culture that accompanied the Spanish colonization.
Concurrently on view at Channing Peake Gallery are the California Mission clay miniatures by Alvin Cabral.

The exhibition of etchings represents a gracious loan to the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission from The Museum of Ventura County, a privately funded nonprofit founded in 1913. Today it exhibits, educates, collects and preserves county art and history from early Native America to the 21st Century. In 2007, ground was broken for an expansion to double its space and increase opportunities to serve the communities of Ventura County and beyond.

For additional information please contact:
Rita Ferri, Visual Arts Coordinator,
Curator of Collections
Santa Barbara County Arts Commission
Phone: 805 568 3994, Fax: 805 568 3423