Description

Learn about the beginning of E.B. Crocker's art collection, and the first Crocker art collection.

Transcript

Visit the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California Part 2/10 K. D. Kurutz: In June 1869, Edwin is completing another arduous of business in San Francisco when he returns to the hotel where he stayed when he was there and at some point in that evening he collapses. He has collapsed from a stroke. So all of these work had really taken it’s toll five years of arduous work. In August of 1869, really almost six weeks after this event he has recovered sufficiently to fulfill what I think had been a goal even earlier and that was to take advantage of this new transcontinental railroad. So with his wife and there four daughters they launched on a trip across the country, across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. This is there grand tour, the purpose of which is to give his family an exposure to culture, to learning, and to begin to build another part of his remarkable art collection. Lial Jones: Before he left he commissioned an architect Seth Babson to build the gallery for his return and he was then bringing paintings back to fill it. He was going for three years, during that time depending on which source he believe, he purchased seven to 900 master paintings, European paintings both contemporary, German works and old masters and up to 3,000 master drawings. K. D. Kurutz: That collection is a gem that to this day draw scholars from across the world. So it was an amazing gift to give to this community. Scott Shields: And when they got back they started to acquire the work of California artist and at that time they were all contemporary artist and so those things are still what we collect today and we’ve expanded upon those areas but those were the original core. Male: Perhaps the most famous California painting commissioned by E. B. Crocker is Sunday Morning in the Mines by Charles Christian Nahl. Now came Western Search of Gold. Before opening a studio in Sacramento in the early 1850s, the Crocker Art Museum owns several of his vivid paintings but by far the best known Nahl image is this one, the grizzly bear that adorns the California state flag.