The Kingsley Art Club promotes the knowledge and appreciation of art among its members and the community; and encourages the teaching of the arts.
The Kingsley Art Club was founded in 1892 for “the creation and development of artistic spirit in the members and the dissemination of artistic sentiment generally in the community, thus elevating the tone of society”. The club was named for Eldridge Kingsley, a leading engraver of the time, and membership was limited to 50 women in “good standing”. Today the mission of the Kingsley Art Club is educational: to promote the knowledge and appreciation of art among its members and in the community, and to promote and encourage the teaching of the arts. Kingsley is incorporated as a California non-profit organization and membership is open to both men and women.
On April 29th, 2010, Kingsley presented awards to six student artists who entered works in The Way I See It art show held at Mesa Verde High School. Students who received Kingsley awards were:
First Place Winner: Jordan Baker (Mesa Verde High School)
Second Place Winner: Grace Bennett (Mira Loma High School)
Third Place Winner: Rachel Kim (Mira Loma High School)
Honorable Mention: Ashton Smith (El Camino Fundamental High School)
Honorable Mention: Shelby Munns (Rio American High School)
Honorable Mention: Jae Z. Kitinoja (Woodland High School)
Kingsley Merit Award Scholarship Winners - In May 2009, Kingsley recognized and celebrated the art students from our local community colleges by awarding its annual Merit Award scholarships. This year the recognition luncheon was held at the Casa Garden Restaurant at the Sacramento Children's Home.
Today the Kingsley Art Club has an open membership of more than 250 men and women. Members are interested in broadening their own knowledge and appreciation of the arts as well as increasing art awareness within the community.
The Crocker-Kingsley Exhibition is a forum for new art forms and provides area artists with an unparalleled opportunity for extensive exposure in a prestigious and historical juried art show. The Exhibition was first held in 1927, when Kingsley began to feature an annual program of art related lectures and art exhibitions of members’ work.
A number of prominent artists received their first recognition in the Crocker-Kingsley Exhibition. Such artists included Robert Arneson, Kathryn Uhl Ball, Elmer Bischoff, Fred Dalkey, David Gilhooly, Ralph Goings, Gregory Kondos, Roland Petersen, Mel Ramos, Ruth Rippon, Fritz Scholder and Wayne Thiebaud.
Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920–) is a Californian painter who is best known for his iconic still lifes of all-American foods and products, such as cakes, pies, sandwiches, cosmetics, and toys. He is also celebrated for his vertiginous San Francisco cityscapes and his richly hued views of Northern California.
Roland Petersen (1926–) is a Bay Area painter whose paintings from the 1950s and '60s are masterful syntheses of gestural abstract expressionism, painterly realism, and advanced color theory.
Elmer Bischoff (1916–1991) was a San Francisco-based painter renowned for his figurative paintings from the 1950s and 1960s. Bischoff is considered part of the first generation of Bay Area Figurative painters, who, along with Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, and James Weeks, deployed the lessons of non-objective, expressionist painting—the importance of gesture and the use of aggressive color—as a means of reengaging with reality-based subject matter.
Sketching outdoors is the foundation of Kondos’ landscape paintings. Everywhere he goes, his sketchbook is his trusted companion. And the studio adjacent to his home is always jammed with small pastel, pencil, and pen-and-ink sketches done on his painting trips. "Drawing is the skeleton under the flesh of a painting," he says. "It is where art begins. Drawing helps me to understand the landscape better, and it doesn’t allow me the luxury of covering up problems in the composition with color."
Kingsley meets on the third Wednesday of each month from September through November, and January through April for lectures by prominent artists, art historians, and recognized art experts. Lectures have covered a wide variety of topics such as American painting, Asian art, European genre painting, photography, ceramic art, sculpture, architecture, art history, ballet and theater.
Speakers receive an honorarium. Speakers have included artists like Ruth Rippon, Darrell Forney, Gregory Kondos, Wayne Thiebaud, William Allen, Robert Arneson and Gerald Silva. Major contributions have also come from the curatorial staff at the Crocker Art Museum and the academic community of nearby universities.
PLEASE NOTE: Meetings are held at the Crocker Art Museum Auditorium located at 216 O Street, Sacramento. Membership card must be presented to enter Kingsley lecture.
Tom Killion creates Japanese-style woodcut prints of the California landscape. He will describe these striking images in story and poem from The Coast of California, The High Sierra and Walking Tamalpais, books co-produced by Tom Killion and poet Gary Snyder.
Modernist artist, Mark Emerson, has successfully fused Op Art and Geometric Abstraction over the last twenty-five years. Join us as he takes us on a visual survey of his art and his utilization of color, space, form, boundaries and rhythm as his artistry has evolved during the course of his career.
New media artist Rachel Clarke will talk about art-making in the digital age, and how the
hardware and software tools she uses operate as both a medium and vehicle for self-expression. Clarke will show drawings, video, animation, and installation works, and will talk about how she weaves together themes, concepts, sound, and imagery in her multilayered practice.
In 1954, the club established an annual scholarship program for deserving art students. This evolved into the Kingsley Art Club Merit Awards. Each spring, Kingsley makes Merit Awards of $500 to six promising art students enrolled in local community colleges. A special recognition event is also held.
