The Pasadena Society of Artists is the oldest established organization of professional artists in the San Gabriel Valley. It was founded at a time when an indigenous creative art culture was flourishing in Southern California. Pasadena with its well known arts and crafts tradition and the Arroyo School of painting attracted artists from all over the United States and Europe. It wasn’t just the weather that kept artists in Pasadena but a healthy climate of patronage that made it possible for them to stay and live in the community.

In 1924 George Hale and Ernest Batchelder founded the Pasadena Art Institute, later becoming the Pasadena Art Museum. They set up the Institute in the house at Carmelita Park. Carmelita, at the corner of Orange Grove Avenue and Colorado Street, was the site of the former home of Jeanne and Ezra Carr. In its hey day their home was a meeting place for artists, writers, intellectuals and scientist. The Art Institute created a center and provided both art classes and exhibition space.

According to the Pasadena Evening Post, Thursday March 5, 1925, Benjamin Brown, the “dean of Pasadena painters” sent out a notice to local artists requesting their “presence” ... to discuss the organization of a Society of local artists”. The preliminary meeting, held March 4, 1925, at the Pasadena Art Institute, Carmelita Park, was attended by the following artists: Benjamin C. Brown, Edward B. Butler, Maud Daggett, Mrs. DeForest Merwin, Louis Hovey Sharp, F. Carl Smith, Orrin A. White, Wallace De Wolff, and Frederick Zimmerman. Edward B. Butler was made temporary Chairman and F. Carl Smith temporary Secretary.

The consensus was that “A Society should be formed and that it should be called The Pasadena Society of Artists”. A committee consisting of Benjamin Brown, Orrin White, Wallace De Wolff and F. Carl Smith was appointed to draw up a Constitution and by-laws for presentation at the next meeting to be held on March 19th. At this second meeting the Constitution and by-laws were discussed and accepted. Officers were elected with Edward Butler as President. An Exhibition Committee was appointed for the first Exhibition, to be held in April 1925.

One of the stated purposes for the organization was “to provide a place for exhibition for Pasadena’s artists”. By stating the “The standard will be high and only work of real merit will be accepted”, the founders established the criteria for membership and the work that would be exhibited. The Pasadena Art Institute provided gallery space at Carmelita for their first exhibition. The Pasadena Star News, April 4, 1925, reported “Approximately, 40 artists and sculptors have works on view at the first annual exhibition of Pasadena artists, which is sponsored by the Pasadena Society of Artists.... The entire gallery has been given over to this local group by the Pasadena Art Institute; nearly 100 art works on canvas or in sculpture are included in the display, which is one of the most comprehensive which has been held in the Park House this season.”

For the last seventy-five years the Society has continued the tradition of an annual Juried exhibition in one venue or another. Reviewing news clippings reveals that the Society has managed to maintain, throughout its history, public notice and credit for consistent high degree of quality, just to quote a few headlines: “Local Talent Revealed in Art works, attractive display now on view at Carmelita Gardens House. High qualities traced in work”, Pasadena Star News, Saturday, April 18, 1925; “Artists’ Society Show one of the Country’s Best; Writer finds canvases at Grace Nicholson Galleries of Exceptional Merit”. “Best Show West of New York”, Pasadena Star News, March 3, 1938; “Happy Coloring Dominates Show of Pasadena Society 22nd Annual”, Los Angeles Times, May 12, 1946; “Vitality of Pasadena Artists Makes it Best in Years”, Los Angeles News, March 5, 1949; “The display is a well rounded collection. It ranges from Hard Edge to Impressionism”, Pasadena Star News, June 5, 1966; “Apex of Area Art on Exhibit”, Pasadena Star News, January 19, 1977; “Artists’ exhibition has 70 years of tradition. Within the framework of the Society’s contemporary image there is a great diversity of individual expression and style”, Pasadena Star News, September 11, 1995; The 53rd Annual at the Brand Library is easily one of the strongest shows the group has mounted in recent history. Although there is a great deal of variety visible in the 38 works, they all possess a similar quality most easily defined as a professionalism”, Larry Palmer, Pasadena Star News, 1983.

Besides the Annual Exhibition and in keeping with its stated purpose, the Society has always maintained a vigorous schedule of other exhibitions each year. These are usually selected by the art committee or non-juried. They take place in schools, universities, libraries, museums and other public buildings. Most of the early annual Exhibitions of the Society were held at the Pasadena Art Institute. Other exhibitions were held at the Nicholson Building every year on an on-going basis since 1925. When the Art Institute moved into the Nicholson Building and subsequently became the Pasadena Art Museum the tradition of the Pasadena Society of Artists Annual Exhibition continued. Since the mid 1970s the Society has presented its Annual Exhibition at different venues throughout southern California.

The founders set up the concept of professionalism for the organization and also the idea of community service. They began by helping with exhibitions for the Pasadena Art Institute at Carmelita Park and continued to supply volunteers throughout the history of the Pasadena Art Institute/Pasadena Art Museum. Society members performed many types of service for the museum. Several members served on the Museum Exhibition Committee: Leonard Edmondson, Walter Askin, Frode Dan, Dorothy Jordan and Jerry Zorthian. The Society has always had an ongoing series of public programs, art lectures and painting demonstrations. Other very important civic involvements included the international exhibitions sponsored by the Sister City Committee, as part of the “People to People” program in the 1960s. Pasadena Society of Artists sent exhibitions to Mishima and Shizuoka, Japan and to Ludwigshafen, Germany.

Each year the Society has been fortunate to have prominent artists, art professionals and museum directors jury the Annual Exhibition. Such people as Walter Hopps, Phil Dike, Lorser Feitelson, Yosh Nakamura, Jan Stussy, Claire Falkenstein, Sterling Holloway, Kenneth Nack, Mike Kanamitsu, Jay Belloli, Wesley Jessup, Walter Askin, Daniel Foster and Henry Hopkins.

Dr. Thomas Leavitt, former director of the Pasadena Art Museum, aptly described the position held by the Society in local cultural life when he said “The men and women whose names appear as members belong to one of the strongest artistic organizations on the West Coast. The Pasadena Society of Artists unlike many comparable groups has maintained an adventurous forward looking policy, encouraging new members and new ideas....” His description is still valid today.

Pasadena Society of Artists started out with fifteen charter members. Today’s membership is over one hundred members.