Chouinard, An Art Vision Betrayed by Robert Perine

He taught briefly at the University of Alabama and at Chouinard from 1952 to 1954.

Bill, he attended USC and graduated from Chouinard in 1950. 22, 1922, in Los Angeles, Perine attended Pasadena Junior College before going into the Navy as a painter during World War II. Perine and Tourje’s revival plans first earned widespread attention in 2001, when they arranged a three-part exhibition by Chouinard alumni at the Oceanside Museum of Art, Palomar College’s Boehm Gallery in San Marcos and Mira Costa College’s Kruglak Gallery in Oceanside.Īfter the modern version of the Chouinard school opened in South Pasadena in 2003, Perine served as co-director and taught design, figure drawing and watercolor painting.īorn on Nov. To the chagrin of loyalists, he also reconstituted Chouinard as the California Institute of the Arts - CalArts - in newly built quarters in Valencia and left the old campus, name and faculty behind. Walt Disney, who sent his animators there for training, stepped in to pay the debts. The original school founded by Chouinard, a World War I widow, had existed from 1921 until 1972, spinning out such creative threads of the Southern California tapestry as painter Millard Sheets, architects Richard Neutra and Rudolf Schindler, Disney animator Marc Davis and costume designer Edith Head.īut with a founder more interested in fostering artistic creativity than managing finances, the school fell into debt, helped along by embezzling bookkeepers. Together, Perine and Tourje started a newsletter, staged exhibitions and held auctions to raise funds for a revamped Chouinard, which first welcomed students last year. An artist and contractor, Tourje had sought out Perine after unknowingly purchasing the fixer-upper home of the school’s founder, the late Nelbert Murphy Chouinard. The title of his book summed up his opinion: “Chouinard: An Art Vision Betrayed.”Ī dozen years after the book renewed interest in the creative school, Perine and Dave Tourje co-founded the Chouinard Foundation.

Perine died Saturday in Pasadena of unspecified causes.Ī graduate of Chouinard who later taught there, Perine in 1985 wrote and published a historic account of the freewheeling art school’s development and transformation into the Disney-financed CalArts in Valencia. Robert Perine, a painter, graphic designer, writer, educator and publisher of art books who spearheaded the creation of an art school based on Los Angeles’ historic Chouinard Art Institute, which helped shape Southern California Modernism, has died.

Chouinard, An Art Vision Betrayed by Robert Perine