Charles Reiffel An American Postimpressionist

Charles Reiffel (1862-1942) is widely regarded today as one of the foremost figures of the California plein air school of landscape painting. This catalogue, accompanying an exhibition of the same name at The San Diego Museum of Art and San Diego History Center, aims to reevaluate Reiffel as a leading practitioner of Post-Impressionism in the United States. Reiffel trained as a lithographer and traveled, worked, and studied in Europe before establishing himself as an independent artist in Silvermine, Connecticut. He finally settled in San Diego in 1925. THere, he immersed himself for the remainder of his life in the landscape of Southern California, its coast and rolling hills, discovering in its unique contours new motifs for his striking mix of Post-Impressionist and Expressionist brushwork. During his lifetime, Reiffel's work was widely exhibited throughout the country. He won national awards and the accolades of innumerable critics, who pointed out the relationship between his work and that of European Post-Impressionist. Indeed, Reiffel was often referred to as the "American van Gogh." While the San Diego region came to be the inspiration for the last important phase of his ar