A TIME AND A PLACEThe Artistic Encounter Between Channing Peake & Elaine Badgley Arnoux1956 – 1962

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A TIME AND A PLACEThe Artistic Encounter Between Channing Peake & Elaine Badgley Arnoux1956 – 1962

This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of

The Hind FoundationHolly Badgley & Peter SternAnne M. Brown & FamilyCaryl Koberg Mr. & Mrs. Hal LarsonKim MartindaleBob & Noël MiddlecampCheri PeakeSehon Powers Giorgio RossilliLou TedoneSharon Ward

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A TIME AND A PLACEThe Artistic Encounter Between Channing Peake & Elaine Badgley Arnoux, 1956 – 1962Catalog of an exhibition at the San Luis Obispo Museum of ArtJuly 27 — September 2, 2012Organized by Paul Bockhorst and the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art

FRONT COVER:

(left) Elaine Badgley Arnoux, The Boat (detail), 1958, Cat. no. 18 (right) Channing Peake, Standing Cowboy c. 1950, Cat. no. 10

BACK COVER:

(left) Elaine Badgley Arnoux, sketch of Channing Peake, c. 1957, courtesy of the artist (right) Channing Peake, sketch of Elaine Badgley Arnoux, c. 1957, courtesy of the Channing Peake Estate

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Paul Bockhorst is an Emmy award-winning writer and producer who has produced a number of public television documentaries on the history of art and architecture in California. He is presently developing a documentary on the life and work of Channing Peake.

Copyright 2012 San Luis Obispo Museum of Art All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-0-9857976-0-7

Designed by Holly PetersonPrinted by V3

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PREFACEThere’s a danger in looking at the art of the 1950s from a jaded, media-saturated early twenty-first century perspective. Mid-century modern art, architecture, furniture, and fashion are considered cool and trendy right now. The danger is that we may be so seduced by the style that we fail to see its greater significance. Viewers of “A Time and A Place: the Artistic Encounter Between Channing Peake & Elaine Badgley Arnoux, 1956 – 1962,” particularly those who are younger than fifty, might have a hard time comprehending what it was like to actually live on the Central Coast of California in the 1950s. What was it like for viewers of the Channing Peake exhibit in San Luis Obispo in 1957? Were they shocked by the paintings? Artists and art lovers in this region were accustomed to realistic landscape paintings and portraits. Elaine Badgley Arnoux had the confidence and the vision to challenge viewers of that 1957 exhib-it. She moved them from their comfort zone by exposing them to the most avant-garde painter in this region. As visitors entered the Channing Peake exhibit, they were confronted by Mr. Peake’s semi-abstract monumental paintings of farm machinery alongside actual farm implements that she had painted in bright colors. In doing so, she helped viewers see the paintings by tying them to their sources. “A Time and A Place” honors that 1957 exhibit by recreating the ef-fect of seeing farm implements with Channing Peake’s paintings.

Elaine Badgley Arnoux has had a successful career as an artist in San Francisco, where she has lived most of her life after the time period of this exhibition. Her paintings, drawings, and sculptures have evolved over the years, but there is still a gossamer thread tying them back to the 1950s. “A Time and A Place” is important because it demonstrates how an artist like Elaine Badgley Arnoux could develop a body of work in a new style by taking a fresh ap-proach. The artist Channing Peake challenged her to take a look at the things around her — houses, artichokes, the boat sitting in the driveway of her home — and to break them into abstract planes

and expressive colors. “A Time and A Place” shows multiple paint-ings of artichokes and boats by Elaine Badgley Arnoux giving the reader of the catalog and viewer of the exhibition the opportunity to see variations on a theme. Channing Peake and Elaine Badgley Ar-noux were peers. They were fellow artists who had lively discussions about painting, abstraction, color, and many other things. Abstract Expressionist painters of the 1950s in New York City had a larger fellowship of artists, but “A Time and A Place” proves that a similar artistic camaraderie existed here on the Central Coast of California.

Post World War II California art is currently receiving a comprehensive review through “Pacific Standard Time,” an initiative spearheaded by the Getty Research Institute. Over sixty exhibitions scattered through-out Southern California focus on different aspects of Los Angeles Art from 1945 through 1980. Although “A Time and A Place” is not of-ficially a part of “Pacific Standard Time,” it has a similar objective — to place postwar California art on the map. Both Elaine Badgley Arnoux and Channing Peake are under-recognized artists. If they had been living in New York City in the 1950s, they may have at-tained greater prominence. That is pure speculation, but I can-not help imagining what it would have been like if Elaine Badgley Arnoux had been in the New York School with artists such as Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner and others. Channing Peake has fallen through the art historical cracks, because he was living and working on a ranch near Buellton, California. It is time to reconsider Elaine Badgley Arnoux and Channing Peake’s places in the history of California art, and I am happy that “A Time and A Place” takes an important first step in that direction.

Ruta Saliklis Director of Exhibitions and Development

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A TIME AND A PLACE

The Artistic Encounter Between Channing Peake & Elaine Badgley Arnoux1956 – 1962

by Paul Bockhorst

ONESAN LuIS ObISPO & SANTA bARbARA COuNTIES IN ThE 1950s

Every work of art springs from a particular time and place. It bears the distinct markings of its origin, even as it proclaims its individual aesthetic identity. The paintings and drawings seen in “A Time and A Place” transport viewers to San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties in the late 1950s. They tell the story of a profound artistic encounter between two gifted artists, Channing Peake and Elaine Badgley Arnoux, beginning in the year 1956.

At that time, ranching and farming were still important econom-ic activities in wide areas of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, with great stretches of open land and magnificent vistas of the kind that attracted a succession of landscape painters. Colin Campbell Cooper, Carl Oscar Borg, William Wendt, John Gamble, Clarence Hinkle, Standish Backus, Jr., Phillip Paradise, Emil Kosa, Jr., and Milford Zornes were among the many artists who sought to capture the beauty of the area. For nearly a century, from 1850 to the mid-twentieth century, these and other artists looked at the land through the lens of descriptive realism. With certain stylistic variations, they endeavored to convey the rolling, oak-covered hills, golden grasslands, and remote, rock-strewn beaches in largely natu-ralistic terms. For them, the facts of the land were paramount.

Channing Peake with life-size painting of a cowboy, likely an idealized self-portrait.Photo courtesy of Channing Peake Estate

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In the years immediately following World War II, American art expe-rienced a period of explosive change. Modernism, a current that had been gathering force for several decades, emerged as the dominant ethos in the fine arts, and under its powerful spell abstraction and non-representational forms of painting eclipsed realism. The most famous and influential manifestation of the new paradigm was Abstract Expressionism, with the New York School at its epicenter. Its members included such commanding figures as Jackson Pollock, Franz Klein, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning. The shift in out-look, from the outer world of physical appearances to the inner ter-ritory of perception, cognition, and expression, was of epic propor-tions and affected all parts of the country, including California.

Chief among the Santa Barbara area artists who embraced Modernism was Channing Peake (1910 – 1989). By the late 1940s, Peake had studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, the Santa Barbara School of the Arts, and the Art Students League in New York. He had travelled and painted throughout Mexico and the American Southwest, and he had worked on mural projects with Diego Rivera in Mexico City, Lewis Rubenstein at Harvard University, and Rico Lebrun at Pennsylvania Station in New York City.

Right: Channing Peake (right) riding with Gregory Peck and others at Rancho Jabali.

Below: Channing Peake (right) with fellow artist Rico Lebrun. Peake assisted Lebrun on a mural project at the

Postal Annex at Pennsylvania Station in New York City in 1936. Photos courtesy of Channing Peake Estate

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Channing PeakeRancho Jabali in Green1947, Cat. no. 1

This painting depicts a verdant Rancho Jabali in spring. Channing Peake and his wife Katherine lived there for twenty years. The 1,600-acre ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley was a wellspring for Peake’s artistic imagina-tion. Through abstraction and the subjective use of color, he produced compelling images of the place that was his home, both physi-cally and spiritually.

Channing Peake was a man with feet in two worlds: the elevated realm of fine art and the terra firma of ranching. Peake’s abstract paintings of objects and scenes from everyday life on the farms and ranches of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties at-tracted wide attention and brought him much acclaim. In Rancho Jabali in Green, 1947 (above), he uses lush, cascading color to an-nounce the awakening of the land after winter rains, while in Summer, Rancho Jabali, c. 1955 (right), he employs ochre tones and a flat, mut-ed, grid-like configuration to suggest the dryness and quietude of

summer. Seeing Peake’s work in 1948, Los Angeles Times Art Critic Arthur Millier was deeply moved: “All this reviewer knows about Channing Peake is that he lives in Santa Barbara, has studied with Rico Lebrun, and is doing painting which for sheer force of design and color has no parallel on the Coast, perhaps in the country.” Meanwhile, another Central Coast artist, Elaine Badgley Arnoux, was on a trajectory that would lead her into Peake’s orbit.

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Channing PeakeSummer, Rancho Jabalic. 1955, Cat. no. 2

The warm ochre tones, flat patchwork design, and loose calligraphic brush strokes capture the rhythm of life on the Rancho Jabali in summer. This work was exhibited at the Jacques Seligmann Gallery in New York City in 1957.

“There is not a definite line of separation; the continuing processes of painting and ranching overlap and intermingle.” — Chann i ng Peake

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Above: Channing Peake (left) and Howard Warshaw at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco in 1957, on the occasion of a three-artist exhibit there (Peake, Warshaw and Rico Lebrun). The painting Team Ropers is visible behind Peake.

Left: Channing Peake and Pablo Picasso at Vallauris in France. Picasso is wearing a cowboy hat given to him by Peake.

Photos courtesy of Channing Peake Estate

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Channing PeakeTeam Ropers1957, Cat. no. 3

When he included figures in his paintings, Peake treated them like other objects within the overall design and animation of the work. In this painting the artist manages to make the horses, men, and lariats dimensional and highly dynamic, despite the essential flatness of the picture plane.

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TwOThE ARTISTIC ENCOuNTER

In 1956, Elaine Badgley Arnoux (b. 1926)* found herself distraught and struggling to maintain her balance. The year before, she had lost her mother and her three-day-old son, John Nathan. “I was raw, totally devastated by the two deaths,” she recalls. “It was one of the hardest times of my life.” The San Luis Obispo resident longed for peace of mind and new directions, new life. At thirty years of age, Badgley Arnoux was at a turning point. She had already won awards in the Art Department at the Los Angeles County Fair, stud-ied at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, taught art at schools in Brentwood and Bel Air, and helped found the San Luis Obispo Art Association. Her work was accomplished—a blend of realistic portraiture, scenes from life in the manner of the California Region-alists, and brief forays into abstraction. Still, she sought a deeper engagement with her art.

At the same time, Channing Peake was preparing for an exhibition that would be seen at both the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco. As evi-denced by the remarks of Arthur Millier, Peake was something of a rising star at the time. He had received favorable critical notices for his free-spirited abstractions, both regionally and nationally, and he was represented by Frank Perls, a prominent art dealer in Los Angeles. With Perls, Peake had travelled to France, where he spent time with Pablo Picasso and his then-companion, Françoise Gilot, at their residence in Vallauris on the Côte d’Azur. Picasso and Peake found common ground in their enthusiasm for painting horses and bulls, and Peake further endeared himself to the Spanish master by giving him a cowboy hat.

It was through a mutual friend, the actress Olive Carey, that Badgley Arnoux learned of Channing Peake. Carey spoke admiringly of Peake’s work, which was being collected by a number of Hollywood celebrities at the time. Carey thought her friend would be interested in the fact that Peake operated a ranch in the oak-studded foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains in western Santa Barbara County, not far from San Luis Obispo. As one of the leaders of the San Luis Obispo Art Association, Badgley Arnoux reached out to Peake and offered him a show in the spring of 1957. It was a fateful decision, for Channing Peake would be a powerful catalyst for change in Badgley Arnoux’s life and work. He would help her claim her considerable creative gifts.

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Elaine Badgley ArnouxThe Net Menders

1952, Cat. no. 4

This and other watercolor paintings done by Elaine Badgley Arnoux prior to meeting Channing Peake show her traditional training at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, as well as her apprecia-tion for the California school of watercolor painting. That school, exemplified by Millard Sheets, valued spontaneity and directness in painting scenes from life.

Elaine Badgley ArnouxOchre August

1955, Cat. no. 5

While living in San Luis Obispo, the artist drew her subject matter from the world around her. In this fresh and spontaneous watercol-or, she uses broad, gestural brush stokes to convey the light, color, and forms of the local landscape.

* Elaine Badgley Arnoux has been the artist’s professional name for many years. It is used in this essay in preference to Elaine Badgley, her name in the years covered by the exhibit.

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ThREEChANNINg PEAkE IN FuLL STRIDE

From the 1940s through most of the 1950s, Channing Peake drew images from the world he knew as a rancher—the sensuous anat-omy of the Santa Ynez Mountains, cowboys roping cattle, quarter horses at work, sheep being butchered, farm implements tilling the soil. After selecting an image, he abstracted it freely, exploring its visual character and expressive potential, inquiring into what it might become. In Grain Combine, 1955 (p. 17), the original object has metamorphosed into what appears to be a knight in armor. In another painting, Wind Binder, c. 1954 (p. 17), Peake conveys the dynamic pulse of ranch life by creating an impression of move-ment on the flat, two-dimensional surface. A rare life-size painting of a cowboy, probably a self-portrait (p. 18), shows the influence of Pablo Picasso. It casts the artist-rancher in a bold, heroic pose. The brim of his Stetson hat reads like horns, adding to the formi-dable demeanor.

For his deconstruction and rearrangement of physical objects—his playing with form—Peake owed much to the originators of Cubism, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. Like Picasso, he relished the god-like power to take things apart and recreate them according to his own fancy. At the same time, he felt the tidal pull of Abstract Ex-pressionism, the first international art movement to originate in the United States. By painting in the uninhibited, intuitive, and force-ful manner favored by the Abstract Expressionists, and by featuring abstracted images of farm implements used in rural parts of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, Channing Peake was reflect-ing both the time and the place.

Although not directly involved in the art movement known as Bio-morphism, Peake nevertheless produced many paintings that have a distinctly biomorphic character. Like Adolph Gottlieb, Henry Moore, and other artists associated with Biomorphism, Peake viewed all forms, inanimate as well as animate, as belonging to a larger field of organic unity. He observed what he called “life shapes”—that is, universal or archetypal forms—and these can be found throughout his work. In paintings like Ploughing Disc Harrow, 1954 (p. 16), Peake imagines the metallic parts of a farm implement to be living, breath-ing organisms. The artist’s son, Michael Peake, describes Ploughing Disc Harrow as “a painting of my father’s world. It’s the world that he lived in as an artist, his inner world.”

For Peake, every aspect of ranch life was grist for his artistic mill. Here, he kneels beside a painting of a

butchered sheep at the Rancho Jabali. Photo courtesy of Channing Peake Estate

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Without the restrictions imposed by realism, Peake was free to meditate on form—pure form—as well as on color. For Peake, color became a language in its own right and an important compositional element. In Side View of Grain Combine with Blue Sky, c. 1955 (p. 19), the artist presents a symphonic color composition that can be ap-preciated without any knowledge of farm machines. In another painting, Disc Harrow in Early Morning, c. 1953 (above), the discs transcend physical reality and become mythic forms suspended in a citron mist.

Channing PeakeDisc Harrow in Early Morning c. 1953, Cat. no. 14

The metal discs seen in this lyrical abstraction of a harrow in pale morning light tran-scend physical reality and become mythic objects in space.

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Channing PeakePloughing Disc Harrow1954, Cat. no. 7

In this large and symphonic work, formerly inanimate objects have been transformed by the artist-magician into living organisms. The painting reveals a rich and complex world—the inner world of Channing Peake.

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Channing PeakeWind Binder (aka Farm Disc in Motion)

1954, Cat. no. 8

Channing Peake was an inquiring and experimen-tal artist throughout his career. Often, as seen in this painting, he sought to create a feeling of motion on the flat pictorial surface. In 1955, Wind Binder was awarded a major prize in an invitational exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum (later the Los Angeles County Museum of Art).

Channing PeakeGrain Combine1955, Cat. no. 9

Peake’s interest in biomorphic abstraction is clearly evident in this painting, in which metal parts have taken on the appearance of a knight in armor, per-haps the famous Don Quixote. The work was in-cluded in the 1957 Corcoran Biennial and was also exhibited at Seligmann Gallery in New York City.

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Channing PeakeTitle Unknown (Standing Cowboy)

c. 1950s, Cat. no. 10

Channing Peake portrays the cowboy as hero in this dramatic work. It is likely a self-portrait, an idealized image of the artist himself. The powerful modeling and Cubist-derived construction show Peake’s interest in the work of Pablo Picasso, with whom he spent time in Vallauris, France.

Channing Peake sketching under a tree at Rancho Jabali, c. 1950s. Photo courtesy of Channing Peake Estate

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Channing PeakeSide View of Grain Combine with Blue Sky1955, Cat. no. 11

The physical object, a grain combine, is the starting point for a meditation on color and design in this large and luminous collage-like work. The painting was exhibited in the 1955 Pacific Coast Biennial Exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

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Channing PeakeVertical Farm Implement1954, Cat. no. 12

Through abstraction and the expressive use of color, Channing Peake was able to create an al-most limitless number of distinct and powerful images based on a single object, in this case a disc harrow. He sometimes turned farm imple-ments on end, further abstracting them and transforming them into monumental objects unrelated to their original function and context.

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Channing PeakeHorizontal Disc Harrow1956, Cat. no. 6

In his biomorphic abstractions, Channing Peake often created fluid, archetypal forms that can be interpreted in multiple ways. Here, field and ground are ambiguous, and the metal discs can be read as bleached bones.

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Channing PeakeOil study for Don Quixote mural1958, Cat. no. 13

In 1958, Channing Peake and fellow artist Howard Warshaw received a commission to create a monumental mural for the Santa Barbara Public Library on the theme of Don Quix-ote, the tragicomic character created by the Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes. Peake and Warshaw divided the work in half, each giving his interpretation of two scenes from the novel. In this preparatory painting, Peake visualizes his half

of the mural. On the left, he depicts Don Quixote and his companion, Sancho Panza, on their steeds, and on the right he shows the infamous knight errant charging a herd of cattle, which he has mistaken for a troop of enemy cavalry. Peake’s strength as a designer and his ability to create pow-erful imagery on a large scale are clearly evident in this mural.

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Channing Peake (right) and Howard Warshaw clowning above the finished Don Quixote mural in 1959. Originally designed for an exterior patio in the Santa Barbara Public Library, the mural was subsequently moved to an interior entrance foyer, where it can be seen today.

Photo courtesy of Channing Peake Estate

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Channing Peake at the Rancho Jabali, c. 1950sPhoto courtesy of Channing Peake Estate

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1˝ 2˝ 3˝ 4˝

Channing Peake Untitled painted bonesc. 1970s – 1980s, Cat. no. 25

No works better demonstrate Channing Peake’s deep connection with the natural world and his twofold ori-entation toward art and ranching than a series of paintings on bones. Here, the artist and rancher are united in witness to the beauty, mystery, and transience of physical life. According to his son, Michael, Channing Peake collected bones throughout his years on the Rancho Jabali, and he began painting on them in the 1950s. These works on bone recall Peake’s strong affinity for Native American and other indigenous cultures. While not imitative, some of them bring to mind the rock paintings of the Chumash Tribe, whose ancestral lands include the Rancho Jabali.

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FOuR1957 ChANNINg PEAkE ExhIbIT IN SAN LuIS ObISPO

The Channing Peake exhibit at the San Luis Obispo Art Association in March of 1957 was a great success. The paintings were bright and bold, modern expressions of the light, land, and ranching life of the Central Coast of California. Most of the images were drawn from the Rancho Jabali, Peake’s ranch near Buellton in the Santa Ynez Valley. The fabled Jabali was known for quarter horses, rop-ing contests, and frequent visits by Hollywood celebrities, including Gregory Peck, Mel Ferrer, and Audrey Hepburn. Together with his then-wife, Katherine Peake, he ran the 1,600-acre Jabali as a working ranch. It was also his sanctuary, a place where he found inspiration and drew sustenance from the land.

In a catalogue for an exhibit at the Frank Perls Gallery in 1953, Peake made the following observation about what he viewed as the com-plementary relationship between ranching and painting: “There has always been, for me, in handling the material of my immediate sur-roundings, the twofold aspects of observer and participant. Concern for the well-being of this land, the animals, the crops, and all of the implements of husbandry have become integrated into my painting, thought, and feeling. There is not a definite line of separation; the continuing processes of painting and ranching overlap and inter-mingle.” Bridging the worlds of art and ranching, Channing Peake played a vital role in Santa Barbara County for several decades. He helped establish the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the “Pacific Coast Biennial,” and he was also a founding member of the Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Association.

The impact of the 1957 exhibit in San Luis Obispo was heightened by the inclusion of actual farm implements. This underscored the sources of Peake’s imagery, while also providing a sculptural coun-terpoint to the paintings. And the visual magic didn’t stop there. In a moment of inspiration, Elaine Badgley Arnoux decided to paint the implements. Through this transformative act, the machines contradicted and confounded expectations, giving up their original identities. Now they were “art objects” and could be experienced by visitors outside any preexisting context. Whether through conscious intent or by happenstance, Badgley Arnoux successfully short-cir-

Above: The San Luis Obispo Art Associa-tion gave Channing Peake a one-person exhibit in March of 1957. In addition to paintings, the ground-breaking show included actual farm implements, which revealed some of the sources of Peake’s abstractions.

Left: This painting from the 1957 exhibit shows a common compositional device employed by Peake. While one farm ma-chine is arrayed in a horizontal manner, an axle and two wheels are turned on end to provide a strong vertical contrast. (The painting’s provenance is unknown.)

Photos by Sehon Powers

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Above: In addition to paintings, the innovative exhibit included actual farm implements, which revealed some of the sources of Peake’s abstractions. Clearly visible on the far wall is the painting Disc Harrow in Early Morning, which is on view in the present exhibition. See page 15.

Right: For Elaine Badgley Arnoux, the 1957 exhibit organized by the San Luis Obispo Art Association was a turning point. Through her exchange with Channing Peake, she would discover new dimensions, both in her art and in her life.

cuited the mental processes of naming and categorization; she drew visitors into the creative process and invited them to contemplate the art of seeing. This echoed Peake’s own process of re-visioning everyday objects on the Rancho Jabali.

For Elaine Badgley Arnoux, this was heady stuff, the opening of new vistas and new possibilities. And Channing Peake did more than provide an example of how to paint abstractly from life. To her sur-prise and delight, he took a personal interest in her development as an artist, providing honest critiques of her work and sharing his own ideas about art. Importantly, he did so as a colleague would, as an equal. “It was tremendously gratifying to be treated that way, and it was also eye-opening,” she remembers. “He helped me see how I could move my art forward, how I could widen my options and make my work stronger. Somehow I was ready for it. Yes, I really welcomed it.” Much of Peake’s commentary concerned ways in which Badgley Arnoux could create volume and depth on a flat plane when doing abstract paintings. This lessened her reliance on painting strategies associated with realism; now she could explore form more freely and deeply.

The dialogue with Peake was all the more meaningful to Badgley Arnoux because she had recently seen Picasso’s Guernica at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. That compelling depiction of the violence and suffering of war resonated powerfully for her, espe-cially with the recent loss of her mother and newborn son. “I just felt that painting,” she recalls. “There it was, bigger than life, explosive.” Channing Peake knew Picasso and provided a direct link with the Spanish master. That surely heightened the value of his counsel and encouragement. “I don’t know whether he intended it or not,” she says, “but the fact is that Channing Peake instilled a confidence and sense of empowerment in me that I badly needed.”

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FIvEELAINE bADgLEy ARNOux: NEw PERSPECTIvES, NEw wORk

Elaine Badgley Arnoux responded strongly to Channing Peake’s work and his commentaries on painting. She produced a large and diverse body of work in the years 1957 – 1962, much of it experimental. At Peake’s suggestion, she first undertook a series of studies of the fam-ily sailboat and trailer, deconstructing and reconstructing the objects over and over again, carefully observing the interplay of lines, planes, colors, and textures. This wasn’t merely a formal exercise; the deep-er purpose was to free her from the limitations of representational painting and to heighten the expressiveness of her work.

Looking at two paintings by Peake—Grain Combine, 1955 (p. 17) and Ploughing Disc Harrow, 1954 (p. 16)—it’s possible to observe the transmission of his Cubist-derived perspective to Badgley Arnoux. In Green Boat, 1958 (p. 30), the San Luis Obispo artist follows Peake’s lead, fragmenting planes in a manner similar to his treatment of farm implements and delivering an animated and rhythmic account of the familiar object. Green Boat contrasts sharply with the realistic paintings Badgley Arnoux had done a few years earlier, such as The Net Menders, 1952 (p. 13) and Ochre August, 1955 (p. 13). Two other paintings in the sailboat series are worthy of note: The Boat, Study (p. 30) and The Boat (p. 31), both done in 1958. The contrasting treatments of the same subject show the vast possibilities afforded by abstraction. They also show the process of deconstruction. In the latter work, the physical forms of the boat and trailer have largely disappeared in a swirl of vital but indeterminate shapes.

Like Channing Peake, Elaine Badgley Arnoux worked from images in her immediate world. Her husband at the time, John Badgley, was an architect, and she was accustomed to painting architectural sub-jects in San Luis Obispo. Now she looked at buildings she once took for granted from a new perspective. In Victorian House (p. 18), a painting of 1959, the familiar form of a local landmark is transformed into a mysterious, dream-like abstraction.

A similar shift in perspective occurred in Badgley Arnoux’s paint-ings of objects from the natural world. After the encounter with Peake, she examined plant forms with a fresh eye, often monu-mentalizing them. This can be seen in Artichoke, Red (p. 34), and Artichoke, Brown (p. 35), both done in 1958. The strong color har-

Above: In the years following her encounter with Channing Peake, Elaine Badgley Arnoux produced a large and diverse body of work in her San Luis Obispo studio.

Right: This painting, titled This painting, titled Child Interlude, 1959, shows Badgley Arnoux’s experiments with simplification and abstraction.

Photos courtesy of Sehon Powers

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monies in these paintings show Badgley Arnoux’s deep interest in color, another link with Channing Peake, who was regarded by critics as a superior colorist.

While portraiture has been an important and continuing dimension of Elaine Badgley Arnoux’s art, her style changed markedly after the encounter with Peake. Portraits painted in the late 1950s and early 1960s show a heightened intensity, achieved through abstraction, simplification, and the bold use of color. In Thinking Man, 1958 (p. 36), she uses color and design to create a portrait that is both visually powerful and psychologically revealing. In 1959 she turned her at-tention to Channing Peake, painting a portrait titled Man with Red Gloves (p. 37). It shows a stoic Peake, his physical being dominated by powerful gloved hands, perhaps an allusion to his prowess as a painter, as well as to the physical work involved in running the Rancho Jabali.

Elaine Badgley Arnoux’s experiments with abstraction led in mul-tiple directions. In the early 1960s, she created a number of still life paintings that have a diffuse and atmospheric quality. In works like Abstraction, 1960 (p. 39), Still Life with Winter Pears, 1960 (p. 38), and Still Life with Persimmons, 1960, (p. 40), the edges of the color-defined planes are softer than in the sailboat series. Also, light takes on a greater importance, with areas of the paintings exuding a warm radiance. These low key abstractions have a quiet, intimate, and meditative quality.

While Channing Peake had a significant impact on Elaine Badgley Arnoux’s approach to painting, his influence was equally profound on the psychological level. Seeing her work through his appreciative eyes, Badgley Arnoux was able to recognize her unique abilities and the merits of her work. Moreover, she saw that her work was worthy of a large scale. “Channing Peake helped me see my own impor-tance and be able to do large, monumental work,” she remembers. “To me, some subject matter is so important that I absolutely must work large. Today, I have confidence to paint on that scale, but I didn’t always. There again, Channing was a valuable mentor.”

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Elaine Badgley ArnouxGreen Boat1958, Cat. no. 15

Channing Peake encouraged Elaine Badgley Arnoux to view objects outside their naturalistic context—to see them in terms of planes, colors, and textures. He suggested that she explore the expressive potential of abstraction by reexamining a familiar object—the family sailboat. Green Boat represents not just a new way of painting for Badgley Arnoux, but a new way of seeing.

Elaine Badgley ArnouxThe Boat (study)1958, Cat. no. 16

In this gouache painting we see Badgley Arnoux playing with form, much as Peake did with farm implements. As she con-tinues to abstract and simplify the lines and planes of the boat and trailer, they are losing their previous identity.

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Elaine Badgley ArnouxThe Boat

1958, Cat. no. 17

Here, the metamorphosis is nearly complete. Badgley Arnoux has transformed the boat and trailer into a rhythmic arrangement of color-defined planes.

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Sketches by Elaine Badgley ArnouxCourtesy of the artist.

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Elaine Badgley ArnouxVictorian House

1959, Cat. no. 18

Following the sailboat series, Badgley Arnoux turned her new vi-sual perspective to other subjects in San Luis Obispo, including historic buildings. She was encouraged in this by her then-husband, the archi-tect John Badgley. In this abstrac-tion, the artist uses color harmony to unify the loosely rendered planes of an old Victorian house.

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Elaine Badgley ArnouxArtichoke, Red1958, Cat. no. 19

In 1958, Elaine Badgley Arnoux’s experiments with abstraction weren’t limited to inanimate objects like boats and buildings. She also examined the natural world. Her serial paintings of artichokes are particularly strong.

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Elaine Badgley ArnouxArtichoke, Brown1958, Cat. no. 20

With her love of the natural world, Badgley Arnoux found that plant forms provide rich material for abstraction. In this painting, an arti-choke takes on an exaggerated, almost iconic stature, as did abstract-ed objects from ranch life in the work of her mentor, Channing Peake.

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Elaine Badgley ArnouxThinking Man1959, Cat. no. 21

In this moody portrait of Wes Ward, Elaine Badgley Arnoux shows herself to be a forceful practitioner of figurative ab-straction. She also displays her ability as a colorist. As with the work of Channing Peake, color is both an instrument of expression and a powerful element of design.

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Elaine Badgley ArnouxMan with Red Gloves

1959, Cat. no. 22

Here the artist captured Channing Peake in a work that is partly representational (the head) and at the same time abstract and symbolic. This painting acknowledges Peake’s creative prowess.

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Elaine Badgley ArnouxStill Life with Winter Pears1960, Cat. no. 23

As she continued to explore abstraction, Badgley Arnoux sometimes softened the painted objects, creat-ing a gentler, more intimate effect. This still life has a diffuse, atmospheric quality marked by areas of luminous color.

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Elaine Badgley ArnouxAbstraction

1960, Cat. no. 24

In this essentially non-objective paint-ing, Elaine Badgley Arnoux uses color and light in a kaleidoscopic manner to create a luminous and even transcen-dent work of art.

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Elaine Badgley ArnouxStill Life with Persimmons1960, Cat. no. 27

In the early 1960s, Badgley Arnoux began dissolving still life forms into soft, ethereal expanses of color, causing the objects to lose much of their original identity. At the same time, Channing Peake was deconstructing wheels, axles, and other ranch-related forms and scattering the detritus across electric fields of color.

SIx OThER TIMES, OThER PLACES

The artistic encounter between Channing Peake and Elaine Badgley Arnoux was relatively brief. In 1959, Peake left the Rancho Jabali, where he had lived since 1939. He worked in San Francisco be-fore taking up residence in Paris in 1960. Away from the ranch, he moved in new creative directions. The gears, axles, wheels, and other physical artifacts of ranch life were reduced to calligraphic markings scattered across pulsating fields of color. This develop-ment is evident in Baja, 1962 (right), as well as in an untitled color field painting begun in Paris in 1961 (p. 42). In the latter, Peake al-lowed the traces of earlier subject matter to disappear altogether, leaving only an energy field in which form and formlessness co-exist in creative tension.

Channing Peake was Elaine Badgley Arnoux’s senior by sixteen years. He died in 1989 at the age of seventy-nine. In the years since her encounter with Peake, Badgley Arnoux has maintained an in-quiring attitude that reflects Peake’s own experimental outlook. As he put it, “I never want to be trapped in one area of painting. I’d rather have choices, be able to do something tomorrow that I’ve never done before.” During her long career, Badgley Arnoux has worked in a variety of media and styles, exploring themes as var-ied as Native American culture, homelessness, war, and the cycle of life as seen in the natural world. What the diverse elements of this rich oeuvre have in common is that they spring directly from the people, places, and issues of her life. Time and again, she has faced daunting challenges—as a woman, as a mother, as an artist, and as a citizen. Each time, she has discovered ways of using her art as a vehicle for reflection, communication, and empowerment. The broad and profound sweep of Badgley Arnoux’s career in art was recognized in a 2004 exhibit at the San Luis Obispo Art Center entitled “Elaine Badgley Arnoux: A Retrospective Exhibition.”

While the artistic interchange between Channing Peake and Elaine Badgley Arnoux lasted only a short time, it was a critical and highly fruitful period for both artists. The work they produced in those years provides a vivid and enduring account of important features of life in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Through their artistic legacies, that time and place live on for the enjoyment and enrichment of people in other times and other places.

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Channing PeakeBaja, 1962Cat. no. 26

In this painting, Channing Peake began exploring non-objective painting. Here, calligraphic markings, or elemental script, are all that remain of material objects that have lost their previous identity. Form and formlessness interact in a primordial sea of limitless possibilities. This work was likely painted in his studio on Tower Road in Los Angeles shortly after he returned to the the U.S. from Paris in 1962.

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Channing PeakeColor field painting (title unknown)1961, Cat. no. 28

In this highly energized work which he began in Paris in 1961, Channing Peake casts off from his material moorings, leaving only enigmatic traces of form in a pulsating field of color.

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ExhIbITION ChECkLIST1. Channing Peake, Rancho Jabali in Green, oil on canvas, 1947,

25 x 30 in., Collection of Cheri Peake/Channing Peake Estate

2. Channing Peake, Summer, Rancho Jabali, oil on canvas, c. 1955, 40 x 70 in., Collection of Cheri Peake/Channing Peake Estate

3. Channing Peake, Team Ropers, 1957, oil on board, 41 x 69 in., Collection of Ann & Henry Foster

4. Elaine Badgley Arnoux, The Net Menders, 1952, watercolor, 22 x 29 in., Collection of Sehon & Deborah Powers

5. Elaine Badgley Arnoux, Ochre August, watercolor, 1955, 22 ¼ x 28 ½ in., Collection of the artist

6. Channing Peake, Horizontal Disc Harrow, 1956, oil on canvas, 19 x 49 in., Collection of Ann & Henry Foster

7. Channing Peake, Ploughing Disc Harrow, 1954, oil on canvas, 1954, 39 ½ x 69 ½ in., Collection of Kim Martindale

8. Channing Peake, Wind Binder (aka Farm Disc in Motion), 1954, oil and crayon on board, 29½ x 69½ in., Channing Peake Estate

9. Channing Peake, Grain Combine, 1955, oil on board, 48 x 60 in., Collection of Cheri Peake/Channing Peake Estate

10. Channing Peake, Standing Cowboy, c. 1950s, oil on board, 72 x 30 in., Collection of Giorgio Rossilli

11. Channing Peake, Side View of Grain Combine with Blue Sky, c. 1955, oil & sand on board, 40 x 70 in. Channing Peake Estate

12. Channing Peake, Vertical Farm Implement, 1954, oil on board, 48 x 24 in. Channing Peake Estate

13. Channing Peake, Oil Study for Don Quixote Mural, 1958, oil on canvas, mounted to Masonite, 52 x 100 in., photo courtesy of Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art Permanent Collec-tion, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Chester F. Radio

14. Channing Peake, Disc Harrow in Early Morning, c. 1953, oil on board, 42 x 72 in., Collection of Giorgio Rossilli

15. Elaine Badgley Arnoux, Green Boat, 1958, oil on canvas, 43½ x 60 in., Collection of Dan Badgley

16. Elaine Badgley Arnoux, The Boat (study), 1958, gouache on board, 40 x 50 in., Collection of Robert & Nancy Clark

17. Elaine Badgley Arnoux, The Boat, 1958, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 in., Collection of Julia Shepardson

18. Elaine Badgley Arnoux, Victorian House, 1959, oil on canvas, 47 ½ x 47 ½ in., Collection of Dorothy & R.L. Graves

19. Elaine Badgley Arnoux, Artichoke, Red, 1958, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 ½ in., Collection of Julia Shepardson

20. Elaine Badgley Arnoux, Artichoke, Brown, 1958, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 in., Collection of the artist

21. Elaine Badgley Arnoux, Thinking Man, 1959, oil on canvas, Col-lection of Sharon Ward & the Ward Family

22. Elaine Badgley Arnoux, Man with Red Gloves, 1959, oil on can-vas, 30 x 40 in., Collection of Michael Peake

23. Elaine Badgley Arnoux, Still Life with Winter Pears, 1960, oil on canvas, 24 ½ x 33 in., Collection of the artist

24. Elaine Badgley Arnoux, Abstraction, 1960, oil on canvas, 40 ½ x 36 ½ in., Collection of Robert & Nancy Clark

25. Channing Peake, Assortment of painted bones, c. 1970s – 1980s, oil on animal bones, sizes vary, Collection of Giorgio Rossilli

26. Channing Peake, Baja, 1962, oil and marble dust on canvas, 40 x 70 in., Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Chris Storgard

27. Elaine Badgley Arnoux, Still Life with Persimmons, 1960, oil on canvas, 36 x 475 in. Collection of Holly Badgley

28. Channing Peake, Color field painting (title unknown), 1961, oil and marble dust on canvas, begun in Paris, 51 x 64 in., Collec-tion of Giorgio Rossilli

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ACkNOwLEDgMENTS“A Time and A Place: The Artistic Encounter Between Channing Peake & Elaine Badgley Arnoux, 1956 – 1962” was made possible through the generous cooperation, enthusiasm and dedication of the collectors, friends and families of the artists. Most importantly, I would like to thank Paul Bockhorst, the guest curator for this ex-hibition, whose brilliant and timely idea it was to bring together the artwork of Channing Peake and Elaine Badgley Arnoux. His tireless work to compile material for this exhibition and the catalog will pro-vide a permanent record of the artwork included in this exhibition; a resource for the future. Post-World War II California art is finally receiving the scholarly and critical attention it deserves, and this exhibition makes a significant contribution.

To the numerous lenders to the exhibition, our heartfelt thanks for agreeing to participate. The increasing value, fragile nature and large scale of many of the artworks in this exhibition have made the con-tribution of the collectors, families and friends of the artists all the more remarkable. I am grateful to all of you for realizing the magni-tude of this project and for allowing the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art to document and display the artworks in your collections.

The Museum of Art staff worked diligently on this project. I am very grateful to the efforts of Ruta Saliklis, Exhibitions and Development Director, for coordination of the materials for this exhibition and the catalog, for handling much of the communication with the lenders, and for her fundraising efforts. I am also grateful to Muara John-ston, Assistant Director; Ashley Armstrong, Administrative Assis-tant; Wendy Walter, Gallery Manager and Registrar; and Beth Mott, Youth Education Director; for their coordinated efforts that trans-lated the important themes of this exhibition to the Museum’s gal-lery spaces and our education programs. Also meriting our thanks are Tony Girolo, Preparator, for exhibition installation; Nancy Piver for catalog editing; Holly Peterson for her sensitive, sophisticated graphic design of the catalog and also for photographing many of the artworks. Special thanks to Rocky Poletti and James Brabeck at

Elaine Badgley ArnouxSketch of Channing Peake, c. 1957Courtesy of the artist

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Farm Supply Company for providing the farm implements included in this exhibition. I would like to thank Victoria Grace, apprentice sculptor, for assisting with the installation of Elaine Badgley Arnoux’s new artwork.

Giorgio Rossilli, grandson of Channing Peake, provided invaluable information and documentation on Peake and generously loaned important paintings from his extensive collection. Kim Martindale was another gentleman who not only loaned an important Peake painting but also arranged for the transportation of many paint-ings to and from the Museum. Michael Peake, Channing Peake’s son, loaned the very important portrait of Channing Peake by Elaine Badgley Arnoux. The exhibition’s success relied heavily on the gen-erosity of Cheri Peake, widow of Channing Peake. I am grateful to Cheri for her steadfast cooperation with the project and for allowing us access to the archives in the Channing Peake Estate.

Very importantly, I would like to thank Elaine Badgley Arnoux for her long and valuable friendship. Her connection to the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art goes back to its founding when she was the first President of the San Luis Obispo Art Association, the precur-sor to our present museum. Elaine generously shared artwork from her own collection and eagerly created a major new work for this exhibition during her demanding schedule of three one-woman ex-hibitions in San Francisco during the last two years. Elaine Badgley Arnoux’s new artwork shows her willingness to explore new terri-tory—something she has done throughout her entire life.

This publication and the exhibition it documents were made pos-sible by the principal sponsorship of the Hind Foundation and many generous contributions by friends of the artists.

Karen KileExecutive Director

Channing PeakeSketch of a man and a woman,

back to back, c. 1950sCourtesy of Nancy Clark