Shively exhibit shows artist's impact on Santa Paula community

When Jennifer Orcutt Heighton, executive director of the Santa Paula Art Museum, sent out a call for local collectors to loan works of Douglas Shively, she received an outpouring of offers.

"I could have maybe exhibited an entire city block of paintings. It was a huge response," Orcutt Heighton said of the works of Shively, the Santa Paula artist and community leader whose pictures adorn walls throughout the city. "I tried to get some of the more unusual paintings. I got some sycamores, but there are more unusual examples, too."

The museum's "Douglas Shively: A Retrospective," features Impressionist landscapes, many of which show sycamore trees. It will run through June 17.

"He liked the color of the sycamores. He liked them most in the fall, when you could see the bark and the leaves were turning color or they were gone," said daughter Kathryn Wilbur, 85, of Santa Paula. "Until he was quite elderly he always painted en plein-air. Then he finished his paintings at home."

Wilber said she remembers her father, who died in 1991, painting with a passion as she grew up.

"He painted very, very many paintings," Wilbur said. "He was very, very prolific, and he painted very, very fast. A lot of people in Santa Paula have his paintings. They're all over town."

A lifelong Santa Paula resident, Shively got his bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley after serving in World War I. He began painting in 1921 and was largely self-taught, although he did have some formal art courses.

In 1926, Douglas was Santa Paula's treasurer and on the side offered bookkeeping services to local ranches, according to Orcutt Heighton.

Shively married Lucy Mae Smith on June 30, 1919. He followed his father, A.L. Shively, into the banking business and was director and president of Citizens State Bank from 1934 to 1974, where his paintings were regularly on display.

Buz Benner, a Mussel Shoals resident who used to live in Santa Paula, loaned paintings for the exhibit. He said he first saw Shively's paintings at the bank.

"They had them hanging in Citizens State Bank in Santa Paula, and you could go and buy them," said Benner, who had a civil engineering firm in the city for 30 years and is himself an artist. "He did a lot of sycamore trees, and we grew up in Southern California, so the paintings were something we thought were so pretty."

Benner said he visited Shively in his later years, when Shirley painted in a more abstract style. Benner and his wife liked the style and bought his work.

Orcutt Heighton said she sorted through stacks of paintings in anticipation of the show.

"I knew him when he was much older," she said. "It was great seeing his work from the '20s, '30s and '40s. He lived a very long life, and he painted through his life."

The exhibit shows a lot of paintings from his trips abroad, Orcutt Heighton added. He used to paint postcards and send them to his family and friends.

Among his legacies was the Santa Paula Art Show, which will celebrate its 75th year March 13 at the Blanchard Library, 119 N. 8th St. Shively also founded the library.

The retrospective is designed to coincide with the Santa Paula Art and Photography Show, Orcutt Heighton said. That show will run through April 4.

Shively also was instrumental in getting a hospital built in Santa Paula.

"He kind of did his own thing," Wilbur said, adding that Shirley didn't let a "no" vote by the community deter him from getting an independent library built in town. "He didn't let it discourage him one little bit. He went out to find people to fund the project. That's the one reason they have an independent library today."

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and from noon to 4 p.m. Sundays. Admission is $4 for adults, $3 for seniors and free for students and members. Museum admission is free on the first Wednesday of every month.

For information, call 525-5554 or email info@santapaulaartmuseum.org.