Location: Corner of Ocean Avenue and Lincoln Street

Open Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday for Friday.

Check out our Art at the Harrison guide.

Lobby

Reading Room

Computer Room

Gathering Place

Artists

Howell Armor, 1899-1977: Armor was a naval commander who retired to Carmel in the 1940s and devoted himself to sculpture. He designed the doors and cross of the Carmel Presbyterian Church, among other works. He was a member of the Carmel Art Association and Carmel Crafts Guild and was a woodcarving instructor for several years.

Ferdinand Burgdorff, 1881-1975: Burgdorff was a nationally known landscape painter who studied at the Cleveland School of Art, and in Paris. He came to the Carmel area in 1907 but continued to travel the world. In 1920, Burgdorff settled permanently in Pebble Beach, in a house designed for him by renowned architect Bernard Maybeck. He was a member of the Carmel Art Association.

Josephine Culbertson, 1852-1941: Culbertson was a watercolor and ceramics painter, who was born in Shanghai and studied in New York. She moved to Carmel with her partner, Ida Johnson, in 1906. Culbertson and Johnson were early members of the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club, and both taught at its summer art school. They built a studio and home called “Gray Gables,” where the Carmel Art Association was founded in 1927. Culbertson was elected its second Vice President.

Ida Maynard Curtis, 1860-1959: Curtis was an American painter known for her landscapes and cityscapes. She was born in Pennsylvania, got her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, and studied art at the Art Students League in New York, and in Paris. Curtis moved to Carmel in 1921, where she was a key figure in organizing the Carmel Art Association and was elected its first Secretary.

Jo Davidson, 1883-1952: Davidson was one of the foremost American portrait sculptors of the 20th century. He studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. Davidson didn’t live in the Monterey area, but Paul Dougherty, the subject of this bust, was a renowned Carmel artist whose works include “Coast of California.” Davidson also created sculptures of other Carmelites, including Lincoln Steffens and Robinson Jeffers.

Paul Dougherty, 1877-1947: Dougherty was an American Impressionist painter who was well known for his coastal landscapes and powerful seascapes. Born in New York, he studied at the Académie Julian in Paris. He painted, exhibited, and travelled all over Europe, Asia and the east coast of the US until he moved west in the 1920s. In 1928, he established a studio in the Carmel Highlands and was elected president of the Carmel Art Association in 1940.

Arnold Genthe, 1869-1942: Genthe was a German American portrait photographer, best known for his photographs of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Genthe lived in San Francisco and New York, with a short stay in Carmel, 1905-1907.

Austin James, 1885-1961: James was a talented artist who studied at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. He moved to Carmel in 1911, where he continued his studies under artist Jo Mora. James was a member of the Carmel Art Association.

Eunice Cashion MacLennan, 1886-1966: MacLennan was an artist, writer and teacher who specialized in portraits, landscapes and animal paintings. She studied at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, the Pratt Institute of New York, and in Paris. She taught art at several schools in Missouri and California. MacLennan moved to Carmel with her husband in 1948 and was a member of the Carmel Art Association.

Jo Mora, 1876-1947: Mora was a Uruguayan-born American cowboy, photographer, artist, cartoonist, illustrator, painter, muralist, sculptor, and historian who wrote about his experiences in California. He has been called the “Renaissance Man of the West”. Among his many accomplishments, Mora also created the Junipero Serra Cenotaph at the Carmel Mission, and “The Greeting” statue in the El Paseo Courtyard, Carmel.

Charlotte Morgan, 1867-1947: Morgan was a California landscape painter who studied at the California School of Design and the University of California, Berkeley. Morgan started travelling to the Monterey area in the 1920s and eventually moved here permanently. With her sister-in-law, Mary DeNeale Morgan, Morgan was active in the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club and the Carmel Art Association.

Mary DeNeale Morgan, 1868-1948: Morgan was a California Impressionist and plein air painter, printmaker and teacher. She first visited Carmel in 1903 and moved here permanently in 1907 when she bought the studio home that had belonged to artist Sydney Yard. Morgan was the director of and instructor for the Carmel Summer School of Art in the 1910s and a founding member of the Carmel Art Association in 1927.

Emile Norman, 1918-2009: Norman was a self-taught California artist, widely known for his sculptures, mosaics, paintings, and jewelry. Born in San Gabriel California, Norman started his career in Southern California before moving to New York. He moved to Big Sur in 1946 with his partner Brooks Clement, where they lived in a home Norman designed and built himself. He was a member of the Carmel Art Association.

John O’Shea, 1876-1956: O’Shea was an Irish American painter who studied at Adelphi Academy and the Art Students League in New York. Born in Ireland, O’Shea emigrated to the United States in the 1890s. He came to California in 1914, and then to the Carmel Highlands in 1916, eventually residing and having studios in Carmel Highlands, Pebble Beach, and Carmel. He was president of the Carmel Art Association from 1938-1939.

Charles Rollo Peters, 1862-1928: Peters was born in San Francisco and studied at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In the mid-1890s, he opened a studio in Monterey, where he became an oil painter of nocturnes scenes of the Carmel Mission, adobes, cypress trees, and the coast. Peters was a member of the Bohemian Club.

Lee F. Randolph, 1880-1956: Randolph was an American painter, printmaker, and educator who studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy and the Art Students League of New York. He served as the director of California School of Fine Arts from 1917 to 1941. Following Lee’s retirement in the 1940s, the Randolph family moved to Carmel, where Lee was active in the Carmel Art Association, serving as vice president in 1951.

Remo Scardigli, 1910-1984: Scardigli was an Italian sculptor who studied at the California School of Fine Art. He lived and worked in the Monterey area 1935-1938 under the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project, and again in the 1940s-1950s, opening several galleries in the area. Scardigli was a member of the Carmel Art Association.

William Posey Silva, 1859-1948: At the age of 50, after retiring from a successful career in the chinaware business, Silva studied art at the Académie Julian in Paris and became a noted landscape painter. He moved to Carmel in 1913 and built a studio in the sand dunes off Carmelo Street. Silva was an early member of the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club and a founding member of the Carmel Art Association in 1927.

Jules Tavernier, 1844-1889: Tavernier was a French artist who studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. He left France in 1871 and arrived in California in 1874. Tavernier built a studio in Monterey in 1875, which became a gathering place for visiting artists until he left the area in 1878. He is considered a founding artist of the Monterey art colony.

William Clothier Watts, 1869-1961: Watts was an American painter who studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia. In 1915, he and his wife bought a home in Carmel after having stopped off at the Monterey Peninsula on their way to Hawaii. Watts was an early member of the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club and the Carmel Art Association. He exhibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915 and at the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939.