Early artists inspired by Palm Springs area landscape

Since the beginning of man’s flirtation with life in the desert, artists have come looking for inspiration and finding it amid the dramatic backdrop of Mt. San Jacinto. The first settlers, the Cahuilla Indians, created functional baskets that were crafted out of grass, either twined or coiled. They created designs representing lightning, flowers, eagles, and snakes. Families could identify their baskets by the design and the colors used. Many of these baskets are exhibited at the Agua Caliente Cultural Center and the Palm Springs Art Museum.

When the Southern Pacific Railroad began train service from Yuma to Los Angeles, they allowed artists to ride in exchange for their paintings and drawings of the western scenery at various stopping points. Paintings of the desert landscapes were used to entice travelers to explore the Southwestern region of the nation.

In the early part of the 20th century a small group of artists traveled throughout the Mojave and Colorado deserts gathering inspiration. Carl Eytel found his passion in capturing the beauty of the palm tree in the oases that are scattered throughout the desert canyons. He became famous when he illustrated the book “Wonders of the Colorado Desert” for George W. James.

Southern Pacific Railroad made path through the wild

Photographer Stephen Willard painted in color to his black and white photographs and created a style that became synonymous with Palm Springs. His photographs were replicated in postcards spreading the beauty of the desert throughout the world.

In the 1920s, many American and European Impressionists came west by train and were impacted by the deserts as well as the healthy climate of Southern California. Palm Springs played a significant part during this period even though the artists’ colonies that formed in the desert were not as large as the artists' colonies that sprung up in Carmel and in Laguna Beach. Artist John Paul Burnham came to the desert and started an artists’ colony on a large property snuggled against the foot of the Mt. San Jacinto. Today that compound has been thoroughly renovated and is available as a luxury vacation spot known as Colony 29.

Local desert artists painted sand dunes, palm canyons, spring flowers, smoke trees and rock formations. Their paintings hung in the first art gallery in Palm Springs located at The Desert Inn Hotel. Tourists who came to the desert had the opportunity to take a reminder of the desert back home while the local artists benefited.

Renee Brown is director of education and associate curator for the Palm Springs Historical Society.