Sullivan Goss
AN AMERICAN GALLERY
Celebrating 27 Years of 19th, 20th and 21st Century American Art
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Ray Strong

(1905-2006)

Oak Group Founder / California Landscape Painter

by Jeremy Tessmer

Ray Strong had been a landscape painter, muralist and poet since he was just eight years old. His landscapes are among the best representations of the California coast and Oregon. As a founding member of the Oak Group, Strong influenced an entire generation of painters in Santa Barbara County.




Table of Contents

I. Biography

Strong was born in Corvallis, Oregon in 1905. While he attended high school, Strong began painting plein air with Clyde Keller of Portland. Realizing his passion for art, Strong enrolled first in the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco (now the San Francisco Fine Arts Institute). Strong then went to New York, and studied with Frank Vincent DuMond at the Art Students League.

In the early 1930s, Strong returned to San Francisco where he helped organize the Art Students League of San Francisco. There he studied and taught with Maynard Dixon (1879–1938), Frank Van Sloun (1879–1938) and George Post (1906–1997), and eventually opened an Artist’s Cooperative Gallery. During the Depression, Strong painted murals for the WPA. Some of his 1930s paintings are now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

In 1960, Strong and his wife Elizabeth, moved to Santa Barbara, California, for "the birds and the banks." Strong had been commissioned to paint the backgrounds to dioramas in the Bird Hall of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, as well as some paintings for local bank. Until his death in 2006, Ray Strong was recognized as one of the leaders of the preservationist painters collective, The Oak Group in Santa Barbara County.

II. SGTV Video

"Ray Strong's Cronkhite Coast"
Produced by Nathan Vonk
Narrated by Frank Goss

This video documents the research done by the gallery to identify the scene in a recently acquired painting by the artist.

To watch this video click on the image to the left.

III. An Analysis of the Artist's Work

Ray Strong's paintings of the California and Oregon landscape are astonishing in their feeling for the rhythms of natural form. Where his first paintings from the 1930s and 1940s belong to the American Scene painting tradition, his subsequent work documents his affection for the western land. His most successful works place him in the lineage of fine American landscape painters of the twentieth century along with his friend and fellow painter, Maynard Dixon.


Shanties and Shacks
c. 1940s
21.5" x 27.5"
Oil on canvas
Private Collection
This painting shows the transition from Ray Strong's Scene tradition painting to his developing interest in the landscape. With buildings jutting out at odd angles into the background and with waving grasses, the artist's interest in compositional rhythm becomes evident as well. According to the artist, the area is Mendocino. Ray and his wife, Betty, stayed there during summers when a friend of theirs was out of town.


Ranch by the Bay
1947
32.5" x 54.25"
Oil on canvas
Private Collection

Ranch by the Bay is considered by many to be the definitive painting by Ray Strong. It is characterized by undulating, grass-covered hills, sweeping clouds and a quite bay, subjects often found in Ray Strong’s paintings. Sullivan Goss acquired this work in 2007 from Richmond, California, where it had remained hidden in a private collection for over 60 years. The work’s style, technique, composition, age and signature are all consistent with the artist's best work.

IV. Collections

  • Lassen, Rainier, and White Sands National Parks
  • Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
  • Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
  • Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, CA
  • Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding, CA
    		•

    V. Exhibitions

    This section of the site is under construction.

  • 2008 "Ranch By The Bay", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA2005 "Ray Strong: Hidden Treasures", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
  • 2005 "Anima Mundi", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
  • 2005 "Ray Strong: 100 Years", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
  • 2004 "In Search of America: Art of the American Scene", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
  • 2003 "The Eighth Annual Small Images Show", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
  • 2003 "Ray Strong: Endurance", Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA
    		•


    Lifting Clouds, Morning Light April, 1980
    18" x 36"
    Oil on board
    Private Collection

    VI. Education & Affiliations

  • 1985 Co-founder, Oak Group
  • 1965 Co-founder, Santa Barbara Art Institute, Santa Barbara, Calif.
  • 1934-36 WPA
  • 1934 San Francisco Art Students League
  • 1926 Art Students League, New York
  • 1924 California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco (now the San Francisco Fine Arts Institute)
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