Fleischer Museum Information

The Fleischer Museum opened its doors in the summer of 1990 as the first museum dedicated to the California School of American Impressionism. Its goals are first and foremost to preserve these works of art and to give these artists and this period the recognition we believe they truly deserve. The Museum also seeks to create a scholarly forum for education. To this end we have created, and continue to create, a comprehensive art library and slide repository of this period. Also, we plan to leverage the World Wide Web to provide educational information that will supplement future special exhibitions. Finally, the Museum continues its commitment to assist in enhancing the cultural aspects of our community. To accomplish this goal, we have provided a permanent home for our collection and offer the viewing of these masterworks and other exhibtions to the public free of charge. Also, through our Web site, we can now share portions of our collection, as well as educational information on impressionism to a wider, global community. My husband Mort and I began collecting the California School of American Impressionism as we were influenced by and loved the French Impressionists, but were interested in developing a collection of art with American origins. Upon being introduced to the California School, which had been long overlooked, we fell in love with the work and began collecting paintings by the artists who comprised this period. While our focus for the Fleischer Collection remains on California Impressionism, we continue to broaden our perspective as we were introduced to still another period of exciting art that has been inaccessible to the West for a period of over fifty years. The work is of Russian origin and is referred to as Russian and Soviet Realism depicted in an Impressionistic style. As with the instant love we felt for the California paintings, this art work struck a similar chord.