Hilbert Museum of California Art Launches With Collection of ‘California Scene’ Paintings

The Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University, in Orange, Calif., has been established with 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.

Since collecting their first California Scene paintings in 1992, Mark and Janet Hilbert have built one of the most comprehensive collections of Californian artists in the world, which they are now delighted to share with students and the public.

The Hilbert Collection includes art from nearly all periods of the twentieth century, but primarily features works created by the most innovative California Scene painters from the 1930s to 1970s.

The California Scene movement is a visual journey through California history: the transformation of California from a wild, untamed Western landscape of rolling hills and vast empty coastlines into an urban industrial panorama, dotted with skyscrapers and New Deal mural projects, and finally into its modern economy based on entertainment, agriculture, international trade, Silicon Valley industries and tourism. California Scene painting, spanning the 20th century, has always been about depicting and embracing new developments in culture and lifestyle. Today, it affirms an emotional connection between the California landscape and its inhabitants, as it tells the stories of everyday people in a changing world.

Mark Hilbert graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in 1966 with a degree in engineering and went on to invent a new energy-saving air conditioning product. In 1988, he founded Hilbert Property Management, based in Newport Beach. Janet holds a master’s degree and teaching credential from USC, and served as professor of business at Santa Ana College for 35 years. Mark and Janet wed in 1994, and have three children and six grandchildren.