1 April 2016

Landslides in Art Part 25: Richard Humphrey

Posted by Dave Petley

Landslides in Art Part 25: Richard Humphrey

This version of the Landslides in Art series features a painting by the Californian artist Richard Humphrey.  He has a Bio on the Tirage Art website, as follows:

Richard Humphrey began his formal art education at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles in 1972. He then joined the staff of the Aerospace Corporation as a graphic designer, which provided him with a comprehensive background in design, illustration, and computer graphics. As a fine artist, Humphrey has focused on painting en plein air, concentrating on the area in which he was raised, California’s Palos Verdes Peninsula. Since 1997, Humphrey and fellow local artists have created hundreds of paintings to benefit the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy in the preservation of the still undeveloped acreage in the area. California Museum exhibitions include: The Autry National Center, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, the Carnegie Art Museum, the Pasadena Museum of History, the Pasadena Museum of California Art and the State Capitol Building in Sacramento. He is a Founding Member of the Portuguese Bend Artists Colony and a Signature Member of the California Art Club, where he was awarded the Edgar Payne Award for landscape painting in 2007.

The work I am featuring is a watercolour entitled ““Morning at Bluff Cove”, which was selected for the California Art Club’s 105th Annual Gold Medal Exhibition:-

Richard Humphrey

Morning at Bluff Cove by Richard Humphrey

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The location is, I think, Bluff Cove on the Palos Verdes Estates Shoreline Preserve in California.  The bluffs of this section of coastline are renowned for active landslides.  The painting captures beautifully two examples.  On the leff the landslide appears to be a shallow translational slide, whilst on the right is a deeper seated landslide, perhaps with an element of rotational failure.