UCSD professor emeritus of American comparative literature
Bram Dijkstra, a nationally recognized art historian, will speak April 10 at 7 p.m. at the Oceanside Museum of Art on a new
exhibit that highlights some of the finest work of San
Diego painters.

Dijkstra’s show, entitled “Masterpieces of San Diego
Painting: Fifty Works from Fifty Years, 1900-1950,” features masterpieces from
private collections and museums, including the celebrated plein air painters of
San Diego such as Maurice Braun, Charles Fries, Alfred Mitchell and Charles
Reiffel, as well as heralded San Diego modernists, including Belle Baranceanu,
Dan Dickey and Ethel Greene.

“As the works in this exhibition demonstrate, during the
first few decades of the last century the features of the local landscape Braun
had enumerated with such enthusiasm, indeed lured numerous artists into
producing some of their finest work,” Dijkstra said. “Thus, throughout the ‘20s
and even during the early ‘30s, the most visible presence in the San
Diego art world would continue to be the landscape
painters who were closely connected with what has since become known as
California Impressionism.”

Dijkstra has also written a 140-page catalogue to accompany
the exhibit, which closes June 29,
2008.