DAMNGORGEOUS:Millard Sheets and His Southern California Legacy

Image: Millard Sheets, Cotton Pickers, 1929, oil on canvas

The current exhibition DAMNGORGEOUS: Millard Sheets and His California Legacy at Oceanside Museum of Art is a world class exhibition of the celebrated California Regionalist Millard Sheets. There are over 40 diverse works of art in the show including oils, watercolors, lithographs, drawings and etchings that provide viewers a comprehensive look at his impressive career.

What makes this exhibit so unique is the personal connection viewers have to the artist through his daughter's narrative. Carolyn Sheet's Owen Towle provided her personal collection of her father's treasured works of art to the museum for this special exhibit. During a lecture and walk through of the exhibition Carolyn shared many heart warming stories about her father and his career as an artist.

The book Damngorgeous: A Daughter's Memoir of Millard Owen Sheets, written by Carolyn, was the catalyst for the show. In this book Carolyn wanted to tell her fathers story and the Oceanside Museum of Art worked hard to bring together an excellent collection of his work that would compliment her loving story. You will see styles from every period in Sheets' career from the 1920s to the 1980s, including his last painting of an island off the coast of Northern California and the painting he hung in the Paris Salon early in his career. You will travel through the many countries and styles that Sheets explored in this captivating exhibition that is on view through January 4, 2009.