Sell to Us · California Art
Sell California art to buyers who know the Laguna school by hand.
Free visit · cash offers · no obligation
California painted itself early. By the 1910s, plein air painters were working the coves below Laguna's bluffs and the arroyos around Pasadena, and their canvases have been settling into Southern California households ever since. We buy them: Laguna school landscapes, early California impressionists, WPA-era prints, and the mid-century modernists who followed. If a painting has hung in your family long enough to feel like furniture, it is worth showing us.
Not every good canvas is signed legibly, and not every signature tells the whole story. We do real attribution work: comparing brushwork, checking exhibition labels on the stretcher, reading the frame itself, which often dates a painting better than the paint does. And when a piece belongs at a major auction house rather than in a dealer's hands, we say so plainly. That honesty costs us some paintings. It also means the painting goes wherever it brings your family the most.
What we look for in California art
Plein air and early Laguna paintings
Landscapes from the 1900s-1940s, Laguna Beach and Pasadena school painters especially
WPA and Depression-era prints
Lithographs, block prints, and watercolors from the federal art projects of the 1930s
Mid-century California modernists
Postwar abstraction, hard edge painting, and figurative work from the 1950s and 60s
Unsigned and unattributed canvases
We research brushwork, stretcher labels, and frames before we price, not after
Frames, labels, and provenance
Original gilt frames, gallery labels, and family paperwork can add real value
California art lives in California houses
Southern California is where this art was made, and it is still where most of it lives. Laguna Beach hung its painters in beach cottages that became estates; Pasadena's craftsman houses kept their arroyo scenes over the mantel for a century. When we visit a home in South Laguna or on the streets around the Gamble House, we bring the whole picture: what the regional auction records say, which collectors are actively buying, and what the frame and labels tell us. Bring us the backs of the paintings as much as the fronts. An exhibition sticker from a 1930s gallery show can move a canvas from decorative to documented, and documented is what the market pays for.
How We Work
We evaluate everything in front of you, explain what we’re seeing, and pay cash before we leave. No consignment, no waiting on a sale.
How it works
Call or text photos.
A real conversation about what you have, no pressure to sell.
We come to you.
We look at everything, at your pace. We know what we're seeing.
Cash offer, same visit.
A fair price on the spot, or a full estate sale run for you.
Common questions
The painting isn't signed. Is it worth anything?
Sometimes, yes. Plenty of good early California work is unsigned or signed illegibly. We compare brushwork, look for stretcher and frame labels, and check old exhibition records. If we can build a credible attribution, we price it accordingly. If we cannot, we tell you exactly what we can pay and why.
Would auction bring more than selling to you?
For a documented painting by a name like Edgar Payne or Granville Redmond, often yes, and we will say so and point you toward the right house. For most unsigned or minor works, our cash offer beats auction after fees, shipping, and months of waiting.
Should I clean or reframe the painting first?
Please don't. Original frames, old varnish, and even the dust on the stretcher help us date and attribute a piece. Amateur cleaning has erased more value than it has ever added. Show it to us as it hangs, labels and all, and let us read it intact.
What should I photograph if I want an opinion before booking a visit?
Photograph the full front in even daylight with no flash, then the entire back including the stretcher bars, then close-ups of every label, stamp, or chalk inscription, and finally the signature and one corner of the frame. The back is where the evidence lives; labels and frame construction date a picture as reliably as the brushwork does. That set of images is usually enough to say whether a real evaluation is warranted.
How can I tell whether it is an actual painting or a print?
Hold a light almost flat against the surface and look across it. A painting shows raised brushwork and ridges that catch the light, while a print stays flat even where it imitates texture. A loupe settles most cases, since printed images break into a regular dot or rosette pattern under magnification. Then check the back, because canvas on stretcher bars with labels is a different object from a paper image mounted on board.
One call. We’ll take it
from there.
(949) 449-12555.0 on Google · Free visit, no obligation · Cash the same visit
Mon-Sat 6 am-8 pm · Sun 8 am-5 pm
A real person answers seven days a week, weekends included. Photos sent today are usually answered the same day.
Prefer photos? Text them straight to the same number · or send them here
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