Laguna Art Museum Donates Outerbridge Photos to Festival of Arts

Submitted story by the Laguna Art Museum

On Wednesday, June 13, presented a gift to the Festival of Arts of four photographs by Paul Outerbridge, all previously owned by Laguna Art Museum. Malcolm Warner, executive director of Laguna Art Museum, and Janet Blake, curator of collections, presented the gift to Festival of Arts board president Fred Sattler; Tom Lamb, vice president; and Pat Kollenda, secretary.

“How wonderful on our 80th anniversary to receive this addition to our permanent art collection which furthers the documentation of the Festival's history,” said Festival of Arts President Fred Sattler.

The four photographs, all from 1950–51, have recently been identified as relating to the . One photograph is a portrait of artist and Festival of Arts founder Roy Ropp in his studio. The three other photographs are of three posed pictures at the Pageant of the Masters. The subject of the three living pictures from the 1950 Pageant of the Masters were identified by Malcolm Warner as Diana the Huntress, a sculpture by Anna Hyatt Huntington from 1922;The Departure of Lot and His Family from Sodom by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1613–15; and The Annunciation by Hans Memling, 1465–75. The Rubens is in the collection of the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, and the Memling is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Since 1932 the Pageant of the Masters, which takes place on the grounds of the Festival of Arts, has produced an annual production of tableaux vivants, or “living pictures,” which are re-creations of works of art with real people posing to look exactly like their counterparts in the original pieces.

The Board of Trustees of Laguna Art Museum unanimously approved the gift, noting that it was fitting that the four photographs be in the collection of the Festival of Arts. Director Malcolm Warner remarked that both Laguna Art Museum and the Festival of Arts can trace their heritage to the Laguna Beach Art Association, which was founded in 1918, and are in that sense related institutions.

Paul Outerbridge (b. 1896 New York City, d. 1958 Laguna Beach, California) was a designer and illustrator in New York before turning to photography in the 1920s. Outerbridge’s work appeared in magazines such as Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar,and McCall’s, as well as in exhibitions of fine photography at Royal Photographic Society in London, the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Getty. In 1943 he moved to Southern California where he continued photographing and writing about photography until his death in 1958. He was himself an exhibitor at the Festival of Arts in 1949, 1950, 1955, and 1957. Outerbridge was celebrated for his ability to transform commonplace objects into semiabstractions through a keen sensitivity to pattern and light.

"The Festival is appreciative of Malcolm Warner, Janet Blake and the Laguna Art Museum Board of Trustees for the collaborative spirit in which this gift was made. These photographs by Paul Outerbridge represent a connective union on many levels and reinforces the historic bond between our organizations,” stated Festival of Arts Vice President Tom Lamb.