Habitat: Making the California Environment

A freestanding white wall holds a large gilt-framed painting of jagged gray peaks above a turquoise lake, while more gold-framed landscapes line the pale walls beyond, across a wide floor of honey-colored wood.
Three gilt-framed landscapes hang on a pale gray wall: purple hills over a dusky meadow, a lone green oak in a soft valley, and a field of orange poppies under dark trees. Small lettering above them reads Joan Irvine Smith and Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Gallery.
Title
Habitat: Making the California Environment
Artist/Creator
William Alexander Griffith, Curtis Chamberlin, Angel Espoy, Ben Foster, John M. Gamble, Aaron Kilpatrick, Marion Kavanagh Wachtel, Raymond Dabb Yelland, Andrew Weathers, and others
Description
Curated by James Nisbet at UC Irvine’s Langson Orange County Museum of Art, this exhibition examines California’s changing ecosystems through plein-air landscape paintings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Featuring more than 40 works drawn from the museum’s holdings and the James Irvine Swinden Family Collection, the exhibition considers how artists documented landscapes during a period preceding widespread urbanization and environmental transformation. Organized around native wildflowers, Orange County landscapes, California missions, mountain environments, and trees, the exhibition connects historical representations of place with contemporary concerns about invasive species, biodiversity, and habitat loss. California Certified Field Botanist Justin Felder contributed botanical identifications and ecological perspectives, while a newly commissioned sound installation, Landscape Hocket (Orange County) (2025), by Andrew Weathers extends the exhibition’s exploration of landscape through sound.
Event Type
Exhibition
Date
September 20, 2025 – January 10, 2026
Location
UC Irvine Langson Museum Interim Gallery, 18881 Von Karman Avenue, Irvine, California
Organizer
Curated by James Nisbet, Professor and Chair, Department of Art History, UC Irvine; botanical advisor Justin Felder
Affiliated Organizations
UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art
Landscape Hocket (Orange County)
Finding Flora: Exploring Nature, Art, and Meaning in California Landscapes
Geographic Scope
Statewide
Climate & Ecology Themes
Biodiversity and Species Loss
Land Stewardship and Conservation
Discipline / Field
Arts & Design
Concepts
Memory and History
Place and Belonging
Audience / Engagement Type
Public / General Audience
Methods & Approaches
Art and Science Collaboration
Archival Research
Rights
Rights held by artist or creator
Website
langson.uci.edu
Item sets
California Art & Climate Archive
UC Irvine
Media
A freestanding white wall holds a large gilt-framed painting of jagged gray peaks above a turquoise lake, while more gold-framed landscapes line the pale walls beyond, across a wide floor of honey-colored wood.Habitat: Making the California Environment 1
Three gilt-framed landscapes hang on a pale gray wall: purple hills over a dusky meadow, a lone green oak in a soft valley, and a field of orange poppies under dark trees. Small lettering above them reads Joan Irvine Smith and Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Gallery.Habitat: Making the California Environment 2