65B - ARTS AND CULTURE MASTER PLAN

Home Browse Search

Once these newly arrived immigrants settled into town they would often find themselves seeking out entertainment at the Sycamore Hall on 5th & Sycamore where the Ramona Building now stands. Here they would have been surprised to find a performance stage nestled above the wooden sidewalk supported by the large Sycamore tree in front of the hall.5 The historian Charles Swanner noted that prior to motion pictures the only entertainment available was at the Grand Old Opera House completed in 1897.6 Visiting artists to this frontier town included the traveling minstrel James Pipes of Pipesville,7 poet Joaquin Miller,8 and Orange County's first pop star Helena Modjeska in the company of future Nobel laureate of literature Henryk Sienkiewicz.9 By the 1890's the increasing ease of travel to Southern California began to encourage a greater number of artists to settle, explore, and create their own interpretations of movements within the global art community. The region's pristine natural resources and stunning landscapes gave rise to the California Impressionist movement centered around the Laguna Beach Art Colony. Sculptor Solon Borglum spent time in Santa Ana as the guest of the local Santa Ana High School Principal before heading back east to create his western inspired works.10 Notable painters including Evylena Nunn Miller, Orpha Klinker, Frank Coburn, and Joseph Kleitsch were increasingly commissioned by prosperous local families reaping the benefits of the wealth created by a booming agricultural economy." The 1930's marked a turning point in which arts and cultural institutions began to attract public support. In 1931 the Santa Ana City Council honored the bequest of Charles W. Bowers and passed Ordinance #939 pledging public funds for the creation of an Orange County Museum .12 Architects Frank Lansdown of Santa Ana and W. Horace Austin of Long Beach designed the building with a distinctly regional mission revival design and included interior murals by Martin Syvertsen.13 The Bowers Museum institution formally opened to the public on February 13, 1936 in the middle of the depression. Horace Austin would go on to design the 1935 Santa Ana City Hall with the support of a Works Progress Administration (WPA) grant. That very same year local sculptress Ada Mae Sharpless debuted the 'Lady of the Lake' at Echo Park in Los Angeles. World War Two and the immediate post-war demobilization slowed the number of notable art milestones. However the tectonic shifts the 1960's began to set into motion the beginning of Santa Ana's growing art scene. 6 Ballard, Ray. W.P.A. Research Project #3105 Sponsored by Board of Education, Santa Ana. Vol. Sports and Recreation, 1936. 39 6 Swanner, Charles D. Those Were the Days: Recollections of Charles D. Swanner. Self Published, Elsinore, CA, 1971. 56 Friis, Leo J. Jeems Pipes of Pipesville Visits Santa Ana. Santa Ana, CA: Friis-Pioneer Press, 1980. 7 8 Swanner, Charles D. Those Were the Days: Recollections of Charles D. Swanner. Self Published, Elsinore, CA, 1971. 8 s Friis, Leo J. The Charles W Bowers Memorial Museum and Its Treasures. Santa Ana, Calif: Pioneer Press, 1967. 39 10 Friis, Leo J. The Charles W. Bowers Memorial Museum and Its Treasures. Santa Ana, Calif: Pioneer Press, 1967. 45 11 Friis, Leo J. The Charles W Bowers Memorial Museum and Its Treasures. Santa Ana, Calif: Pioneer Press, 1967. 43 12 Friis, Leo J. The Charles W. Bowers Memorial Museum and Its Treasures. Santa Ana, Calif: Pioneer Press, 1967.14 13 Friis, Leo J. The Charles W. Bowers Memorial Museum and Its Treasures. Santa Ana, Calif: Pioneer Press. 1967.19 65B-67