The Long Beach Museum of Art has been exhibiting and collecting works of art in all media including painting, sculpture, contemporary craft and design since its origin as the Municipal Art Center in 1950 and subsequently since 1957 as the Long Beach Museum of Art. Early exhibitions of art and design by artists active in California included several annual design exhibitions in the early 1950s and a series of media-focused exhibitions, The Arts of Southern California I – XIX between 1957 and 1966, and the Southern California Annuals from 1965 to 1972. The Museum organized exhibitions and made acquisitions of early Southern California Modernists like Abstract Classicists Karl Benjamin and John McLaughlin, prints and drawings by June Wayne, woodcraft by Bob Stocksdale, and the sculpture of Claire Falkenstein, among many others. In 1979 the Museum’s modern art collection was enhanced with a bequest from Milton Wichner of Early European Modernists. A selection of modernist works which were created between 1910 and 1976 are available on this site and include art in all media except photography. Thanks to generous sponsors, the collection of ceramics is web-accessible and includes nearly 500 ceramic works from the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America dated from the 17th to the 21st centuries. Future additions to on-line collections may include photography, contemporary painting and sculpture, Asian art, and California landscapes.
Click any image below to begin browsing through the collection.
