Current Exhibitions
Cornelis Botke: Painter of the Western Scene
On view March 14, 2026, to July 12, 2026
Santa Paula artist Cornelis Botke (1887-1954) is best known as a master etcher and as a supporting figure in the career of his wife, artist Jessie Arms Botke (1883-1971). His etchings earned international acclaim and entered the collections of the California State Library, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution. Yet from childhood, Cornelis’ true ambition was to be a painter.
Botke was born in Leeuwarden, Holland, in 1887. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised and educated in a Mennonite orphanage in Haarlem. Although he longed to pursue painting, his guardians worried about his livelihood and enrolled him instead at the Haarlem School of Applied Art, where students trained for professional trades such as architectural drawing, engraving, and metalwork.
In 1906, Botke emigrated to the United States, joining his cousin’s architectural firm in Kenosha, Wisconsin. A year later he moved to Chicago and worked as an architectural renderer. Determined to pursue painting, he spent much of his paycheck on art supplies and studied at night at the Art Institute of Chicago. Through mutual friends he met fellow artist Jessie Arms in 1914. The two married just six months later and completed their first large-scale mural commission together before even taking a honeymoon—the first of many collaborations during their marriage.
Paintings by both Botkes were regularly exhibited and praised by Chicago critics, and Cornelis earned several top awards for his “decorative landscapes.” After visiting California in 1918, the couple packed their belongings—and their young son, Bill—and moved to Carmel in 1919. There Cornelis taught landscape painting and life drawing at Carmel Arts and Crafts Club, and it was in Carmel that he learned the art of etching. Following a two-year trip through Europe and a short period in Los Angeles, the Botke family settled on a ranch in Wheeler Canyon in Santa Paula in 1929. Jessie and Cornelis converted an old barn into an art studio, combining fine art and fruit growing while producing what they considered their best work.
In 1931, Los Angeles Times art critic Arthur Millier described Cornelis as a “kind-eyed, methodical Dutchman…[who] painted the landscape in a charming, decorative manner, romantic and colorful.” Botke’s landscapes, seascapes, and still lifes were widely recognized for their bright, clear, and joyous color. His training in architectural drawing is evident in much of his work, though as another reviewer observed, “It takes a poet to build up from architectural rendering to such lyrical conceptions.”
Cornelis Botke died unexpectedly in 1954 from acute diabetes, but not before fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a painter. Gathered from private collections and the permanent collections of the Santa Paula Art Museum, City of Santa Paula, and Santa Paula Unified School District, this collection of 50 works is the largest exhibition of Cornelis’ paintings ever staged.
Below is a sampling of artworks featured in the exhibition. Click on any image to enlarge.
Muses and Inspirations: The Art of Vladimir and Gösta Iwasiuk — A Father and Son Exhibition
On view January 17, 2026, to May 10, 2026
“I have always needed to put down on paper, canvas, or in clay the things I treasure—things I care about, things that inspire me. My father was that way too.”
— Gösta Iwasiuk
This exhibition spans more than half a century of sculpture, painting, and drawing by physicians Vladimir Iwasiuk (1905-1986) and his son, Gösta Iwasiuk (b. 1943). Vladimir, who retired to Santa Paula in 1975, pursued his artistic practice alongside his medical career, producing over 350 works, primarily paintings, over his lifetime. Gösta started his career as a general physician in Santa Paula in 1973. Most of his artistic output consists of bronze sculptures created since he retired from surgery in 2018.
Iwasiuk (pronounced ee-VAH-syook) is a common Ukrainian surname. Vladimir was born in Eastern Europe in 1905, in a region that is now part of Ukraine. Gösta was born in Austria in 1943, in the midst of World War II. Both men experienced significant upheaval on their journeys to becoming physician-artists. Their artworks often hint at their heritage and history and convey an old-world sensibility. Above all, their work reflects their abiding passion for life. Many pieces portray the people who inspired them most: doctors, musicians, philosophers, and family members.
Gösta wonders whether his skills—both medical and artistic—stem from a gene passed down from his father, or rather from observation and encouragement. While Vladimir had an inclination toward psychology and a talent for portraiture and landscape painting, Gösta has translated his surgical expertise into sculpture that emphasizes dexterity and the human hand. Whether Vladimir and Gösta’s shared traits are a product of nature or nurture remains open to debate, but the father and son prove one thing: art is its own kind of medicine.
