In the gallery the first painting is by Hinkle’s first teacher, WF Jackson. The second if by Karl Dempwolf. The rest are by Clarence Hinkle.
Clarence Hinkle was a spectacular painter of the outdoors and a leader of artists that painted directly from life in California. Hinkle was born in 1880 in the city of Auburn, California. His father was the owner of a business that painted carriages.
As a young man Hinkle was able to mentor under artist William Franklin Jackson. Jackson was the most sought after painter in Sacramento, California at his death and taught many students that went on to become well known in the California Impressionist scene.
Below is a signature work of Jackson’s and see the influence he had on Hinkle. Hinkle is also compared to Granville Redmond. Redmond was deaf since an early age as a result of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, was an awesome plein aire painter, and even appeared in movies with Charlie Chaplin.
Below is a clip from a show given in 2012 at the Laguna Beach Art Museum. After wasting our time with pictures of palm trees and the outside of the musuem the paintings start one minute into the video. The artist loved to paint with the palette knife and you can also see his wonderful use of Joaquin Sorolla like brushwork. Thick and juicy paint.
For his artistic education Hinkle attended the California School of Design in San Francisco. He also briefly attended other art schools back east and traveled in Europe. In 1917 he moved back to Los Angeles and became part of the faculty at the Los Angeles School of Art and Design and Chouinard School of Art.
In 1922 he moved to Laguna Beach, California.
He painted mainly impressionistic works but also experimented with abstraction and modernist painting. One interesting fact about his method was that he applied black paint right alongside the colors he used. Hinkle mainly painted landscapes, but also produced wonderful still life paintings and some great portraits of women.
Hinkle was part of the Group of Eight in California. This group of painters first exhibited in Los Angeles in 1927 at the Museum of History, Science, and Art.
Clarence Hinkle passed away in 1960.
Price range info: The artist was disciplined in many mediums such as ink, watercolor, gouache, and oils. Watercolors range from $500 to $8000. Oil paintings can be found from $2,250 to $65,000. Gouache works can be found from $2,000 to $1,600.
Despite having a long and successful career Hinkle’s work is not nearly as high priced as his contemporaries such as Redmond. I can definitely see William F. Jackson’s influence on the artist in his paintings of lush landscapes with flowers. Hinkle is not well known at all it seems, no wikipedia page exists for the artist!
If I were to compare his works to a living artist it would be Karl Dempwolf. Dempwolf is my favorite painter of the cyprus tree and paints with wonderful emotion in his landscapes. Below is a singature Karl Dempwolf work.
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