Telling the story of the Golden State through the power of the visual image

The Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University, which opened in 2016, was established thanks to the generosity of Mark and Janet Hilbert, whose superlative collection focuses on the “California Scene” painting movement of roughly the 1920s through the 1970s and beyond. The Hilbert Collection – which includes oils, watercolors, sketches and lithographs of rural and urban scenes, coastal views, farms, ranches, freeways and landscapes of everyday life in the Golden State – is a significant repository of 20th-century representational art by California artists.  The Collection also includes animation and movie art (many California fine artists were drawn to the state by work in the movie industry, including as animators, background painters, set and backdrop designers and poster artists) and works by noted American illustrators.