California Light: The Watercolors of Rollin Pickford

by Rollin Pickford, Joel Pickford, Mark Arax

"Rollin Pickford is Painter Laureate of California's San Joaquin Valley. His watercolors of the region have been exhibited internationally, winning over 300 awards." In this volume "...Five essays and interviews explore different facets of the artist's life and career, his technique, his philosophy and his native land." "Combining digital photography with Hexachrome printing, "California Light" sets a new standard for color fidelity in fine art reproduction."

287 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1998

Reviews

[Christine Celata · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book introduces a most marvelous watercolor painter, tells his story in a short biography, and shows his paintings in chronological order, showing an amazing lifetime of painting. You can see his evolution over many decades, as he got freer and more abstract, and still made beautiful images of the landscape around Fresno, CA. If you think that might be ugly (I did), think again. Pickford was at one time very well known, and he should be now. The photos of his paintings in the book are of good quality. I had never heard of Pickford and was transfixed when I picked up this book from a friend's coffee table. It turns out that she had the same experience. Everyone should put a copy on his/her coffee table and maybe we'd get some publicity for this fantastic painter. He painted for his whole life, into his 90s.

[Sharn Dhah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful paintings of a rural Fresno that doesn't exist anymore (for the most part), with a brief history of Central Valley artists. I kept wondering "how does he do that?" while studying the watercolors, and was pleased to read about some of Rollin's techniques in the text in the back of the book, written by his son Joel.

[Diana Thayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful watercolors, reminds me very much of California as seen on road trips.