Location: San Carlos Street and Ninth Avenue

Lobby

NOTE: The Sunset Center Lobby is only open to the public during performances and special events. Visit sunsetcenter.org for more information.

Artists

Samuel Bolton Colburn, 1909-1993: Sam Colburn and his family moved to Los Angeles in 1918. He attended the University of Colorado and the University of Southern California. He also studied at Chouinard in Los Angeles and with Paul Whitman in Carmel. After spending a year in Europe, he invested in the airplane business in Long Beach in 1934. He sold out in 1937 and moved to Carmel, where he began to paint in watercolor, and joined the Carmel Art Association in 1940.

Jack Laycox, 1921-1985: Born in Auburn in 1921, Laycox studied at the University of California at Berkeley before joining the U.S. Corp of Engineers during WWII, where he worked on the Manhattan Project as a mechanical engineer and technical designer. After the war, Laycox began pursuing a fine arts career, and decided to devote himself exclusively to art in 1961.
He moved to Carmel that same year, and opened his own gallery. He was also an instructor at Sunset Center Studio in Carmel. During his lifetime, Laycox’s paintings were featured in galleries in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Herbert Taylor Lewis, 1893-1958: Born in Oak Park, IL, in 1893, Lewis pursued his art studies at the Chicago Art Institute and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, and the Académie Julian in Paris. Lewis taught for several years at the Chicago Art Institute and Rockford College. Lewis received an award at an exhibition at the California Society of Etchers in 1933.  Lewis and his wife moved to Carmel in 1953 where he pursued oil and watercolor painting. Lewis was a member of the Carmel Art Association where he had a retrospective shortly before his death in 1958. The exhibition included a survey of the artist’s work which included representational, at times stylized, and also abstract works portraying nudes and landscapes in lively imaginative colors.

Roy Lichtenstein, 1923-1997: Lichtenstein was an American pop artist who rose to prominence in the 1960s through pieces which were inspired by popular advertising and the comic book style. Much of his work explores the relationship between fine art, advertising, and consumerism.

Laura Wasson Maxwell, 1877-1967: A landscape and marine painter, Maxwell was self-taught before studying with watercolorist Sydney Yard in San Francisco and Carmel in 1906. She went on to study at the Bancroft School in New York City, the Boston School of Design, the Cainni Studio in Italy, and the Académie Julian in Paris. Maxwell drew traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas, drawing inspiration for her artwork. She married U.S. Navy Captain William Lindsey Maxwell in 1908. A founding member of the Carmel Art Association, Maxwell actively contributed to the local art scene and exhibited widely. Maxwell remained a resident of Carmel and passed away in 1967 at age 90.

Alvin W. Need, 1911-1986: 

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.

Loran Speck, 1943-2011: Speck was born in Stockton, CA. He distinguished himself early in life as an athlete, playing football for Oregon State University on a full scholarship. Loran had no idea he had any talent as an artist until he enrolled in a science illustration class, where he discovered the intricate detailing for which he would become known in the art world. Speck moved to Carmel in 1979 and opened his own gallery in 1984.