What is "California art?" For the purposes of this book California art is any art made by an artist who has established a period of residency in the state. While the book' s main thrust is painting, the medium most people collect, periodic chapters briefly survey sculpture, printmaking, photography, and arts and crafts, both to establish a setting for the style changes through which painting evolved and to show painting's relationship to other media. The volume covers the entire history of California art from the early mapmakers and explorers to the landscapists of the early twentieth century, the post-World War II modernists, and the late twentieth-century "idea" artists who champion personal, social and political issues.