Janet Blake, curator of the Miss Hills of Laguna Beach exhibition, in conversation with researcher Keith Colestock.

About Keith Colestock

Keith Colestock retired from a career in the investment industry and is now an independent researcher with a particular interest in the work of Southern California painters active in the first half of the 1900s. In addition to providing research support for the AnnaHills exhibition and catalogue, he generated substantial new information on the artist Charles Reiffel in support of the 2012-2013 retrospective exhibition and catalogue of that artist at the San Diego Museum of Art. He also provided curatorial assistance for the Masterwork of the Exposition Era exhibition shown last year at the San Diego History Center and helped coordinate and curate the Second Spring and Legacy of the Land exhibitions of historical California art at the California Center of the Arts, Escondido in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

About Janet Blake

Janet Blake is the Curator of Historical Art at Laguna Art Museum. In addition she has been the curator for the E. Gene Crain Collection since 1981. Her field as a scholar is the history of California art from 1900 to 1950, with a focus on American impressionists in California and the regional or American Scene artists of the 1930s and 1940s. Her exhibition Early Artists in Laguna Beach: The Impressionists was shown at Laguna Art Museum in 1986, and in 1991 she co-edited the bookAmerican Scene Painting: California, 1930s and 1940s with Ruth Westphal. In 2007, Blake curated a major retrospective of the work of Millard Sheets at the Millard Sheets Center for the Arts at Fairplex in Pomona. Since joining Laguna Art Museum in 1998, she has worked on several of the museum’s outstanding exhibitions. In 2008 she assisted Will South with the major retrospective on William Wendt, and wrote the chronology of the artist’s life for the accompanying book; in 2009, she was one of the curators of Collecting California: Selections from Laguna Art Museum; and in 2010 she curatedE. Roscoe Shrader, accompanied by a book on the artist for which she wrote the main essay. Her major retrospective exhibition on Clarence Hinkle was shown at the museum in 2012, accompanied by a comprehensive book on the artist. Rex Brandt: In Praise of Sunshine, her most recent exhibition, is the culmination of years of study of the artist whom she personally knew from 1981 until his death. Janet holds a BA in art and art history from California State University, Long Beach.