Erin Lee Gafill

Publisher – 26 letter press
Release Date – April, 2024
Hardcover – 184 full-color pages
Dimensions – 9 1/2″ x 11″
ISBN # 978-1-950731-05-3
Price – $75
Subject – California Artist | Art History | Women Artists | Impressionist Artist | Modernist Artist

While the Bohemians were writing poetry and making Carmel famous, a group of painters, mostly women, were doing the work of building a sustainable arts community that would become
Carmel-by-the-Sea.
Jane Gallatin Powers was the “spiritual rock” of the nascent art colony. Her story and artwork has never been published…until now.

Jane Gallatin Powers was an American socialite, Carmel Bohemian, award-winning California Impressionist, and European exhibited Modernist.  Mother of four children in whom she inspired heartfelt devotion, she visited the sick and ailing, gave tea parties for San Francisco high society, and played hostess for her attorney-husband Frank Hubbard Powers many business functions. Together, they co-founded Carmel-by-the-Sea, one of California’ earliest art colonies, imbuing the budding town with their personal vision celebrating art, music, theatre, and personal freedom. From Carmel to Paris in the 20’s to Capri in the 30’s, her life celebrated Art and Faith above all. Yet her last days found her alone, isolated and cut off from funds, in war-torn Rome. Her riches-to-rags story takes us on a  mesmerizing ride from California post-Gold Rush, through sea-changes in the art world in America and Europe, love lost and found, and through two World Wars.  Though celebrated in her lifetime, after her death, her life and work were forgotten for decades.  But her impact on the California Central Coast can be felt to this day in her beloved Carmel, and through the creative work of her descendants, most notably her granddaughter Lolly Fassett’s restaurant, Nepenthe, in Big Sur, a Mecca for artists, writers, and creative thinkers for over seven decades.