Christine Rosamond Limited Editions at Carmel Art Institute
When: Friday, June 1, 2012, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Where: Carmel Art Institute, Carmel
Cost: Not available
Age limit: Not available
Categories: Art (opening), Community
Rosamond images are displayed in a unique miniature format, along with work from the first collection of Artist Drew Benton, Christine’s daughter, and art by renowned muralist Garth Benton.
5-8pm opening; collection runs through June 23 11am-2pm Wed-Sat. Carmel Art Institute, 3728 The Barnyard, Carmel. RSVP. 309-0126,
Garth Benton, a Los Angeles native who moved to Carmel in 1981, studied art at UCLA and Art Center College of Design. He found his artistic niche when he saw an 18th-Century-style mural at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
“I was 22 at the time, and I knew that was what I wanted to do,” he says. “I’ve always loved art history, so it was perfect.”
Rather than pursue a trademark look of his own, he learned to emulate art of many different periods. “My style is not to have my own style. Instead, I assimilate characteristics of the period I’m depicting,” he says. “Here at the Getty, the murals are part of the ambience. Nobody is supposed to say they are better than the art in the museum.”
The Getty murals are re-creations of paintings discovered in a country house near Pompeii and now in the collection of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Norman Neuerberg, a scholar of Greek and Roman antiquities, researched the motifs, which Benton executed in acrylic paint on the plaster walls.
Water damage, concrete shrinkage and seismic movement have caused cracks and flaking in the murals over the past two decades. Returning to the Getty this past summer, Benton has filled fissures and repainted damaged areas of the most elaborately decorated garden wall. During the coming year he will refurbish remaining sections.
Repair work might seem to be a bit of a bore, but Benton is delighted with the project. “This is like going home,” he says.
Rosamond Press 
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