Fine arts at CHS includes more than 5,000 works of art that represent the history and art history of California from pre-Gold Rush days to the early decades of the twentieth century. The collection is comprised of oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, lithographs, and decorative arts that form a rich body of California subjects by both well-known and lesser-known California artists. Artists like Arthur Frank Mathews, Samuel Marsden Brookes, Jules Tavernier, Percy Gray, Virgil Williams and Theodore Wores form the core of a collection spanning the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including:

• Notable California landscapes by important American artists including Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Hill.
• Views of San Francisco, the Gold Rush territory and coastal subjects.
• Works on paper and letter sheets documenting local events, mining lore and methods, and California scenery during the Gold Rush; and documenting the growth of California's cities and agriculture.
• Portraits of significant Californians and depictions of Gold Rush sailing vessels.

To view CHS paintings and prints available online through Bridgeman Art Library, go to http://www.bridgemanart.com/ and type “California Historical Society” in the search box and browse.

In an effort to bring the vibrant history of California to a wider audience, the California Historical Society and the Autry National Center have joined forces to display in Los Angeles significant works of art and costumes by some of America’s best known nineteenth and early twentieth-century artists. More than sixty paintings by such artists as Albert Bierstadt, James Walker, and Maynard Dixon, and turn-of-the-nineteenth- century costumes are currently housed and displayed at the Autry Center.