What’s in a name? Margaret Bruton’s "Barns on Cass Street"

MARGARET BRUTON (1894-1983)

1925, oil on canvas, 38 x 44 inches. Gift of the artist, 1973.022.

From the collection of The Monterey Museum of Art

In my research on the Bruton sisters, I’ve discovered that it’s difficult to pin down the names of their works. Sometimes works are given one title at first, and the title changes later. Sometimes the same work seems to have different titles in different newspaper articles. Case in point is the beautiful painting above, Barns on Cass Street (ca. 1925) by Margaret Bruton, from the collection of the Monterey Museum of Art. Could this work have had three different names over the years?

I found two sources reporting that a painting by Margaret called Storm Over Monterey won first prize at the Santa Cruz Art League exhibition in 1925. This couldn’t be right, since the first annual state-wide Santa Cruz Art League exhibition wasn’t held until 1928, when Margaret won the $100 first prize for her oil painting Monterey Landscape. So was there a painting called Storm over Monterey? Or is Storm Over Monterey the same work as Monterey Landscape?

The Santa Cruz News described Monterey Landscape as “the modern type of art ... brilliant in coloring.” (31 Jan. 1928, p. 1)   Here’s what the San Francisco Examiner had to say:

San Francisco Examiner, 12 Feb. 1928, p. 10E

Yet I never expected that Monterey Landscape was a work I had seen before, until I read the review in the Oakland Tribune, which included a reproduction of the painting:

Oakland Tribune, 5 Feb. 1928, p. S-5.

Admittedly it’s a low quality reproduction in black and white, but Monterey Landscape looks a lot like Barns on Cass Street. Could they be the same painting? It seems likely.

So perhaps this painting had different titles over time, but when Margaret Bruton donated it in 1973, she called it Barns on Cass Street, and that is the title it has today. It’s especially fitting that this dramatic Monterey scene is held by the Monterey Museum of Art in the Brutons’ home town.