The oldest female artists in Carmel, working from 1905-1925, laid the foundation for the Carmel Arts Association, the most significant artists’ hub in Monterey County, and created the image of the region as an artists’ destination. One of them was painter Jane Gallatin Powers (1868-1944). Her story was never told, until now.
Erin Lee Gafill is a great-great-granddaughter of Jane Powers, who in 2024 released a book titled Jane Gallatin Powers: A California Modernist. A presentation by Gafill was part of the Carmel Library Foundation’s fall program. There are so many founding women of Carmel that such events and lectures could take dozens of months, if not years, starting with artist Rowena Meeks Abdy, going through the first Carmel librarian, Ida Johnson, and famous photographer Anne Brigman who depict nude women in primordial, naturalistic contexts, and finishing with animal painting Elizabeth Strong.
During the event, which took place in the Sunset Center’s Carpenter Hall on Oct. 23, the library archivist located and made available old artifacts and scrapbooks from the precursor organization of CCA, Carmel Arts and Craft Club, active from 1908 into the 1920s. The flock of artists to Carmel was partly a consequence of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Powers—the wife of Carmel Development Company co-founder Frank Powers—moved to the area from San Francisco when they were paid in land in Carmel, in a time when Carmel Beach was divided from the ocean by high sand dunes.
Gafill is an artist in her own right; she grew up in Nepenthe in Big Sur. When she was young, she found in the basement of the family’s Carmel house dozens of Jane Powers’ paintings. When she unrolled them, she found a full collection, from an early phase of impressionism to the cubism that Powers embraced in her later years.
It took Gafill 40 years to write the book, heavily illustrated with historical photos and Powers’ art pieces.
As a big finale of the foundation’s season, in December, the featured speaker is bestselling writer Susan Orlean, a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of The Orchid Thief.
Jane Gallatin Powers: A California Modernist can be purchased at eringafill.com. Visit carmelpubliclibraryfoundation.org to learn more about the whole season of talks.
