FROM POST WORLD WAR II TO THE PRESENT

With the advent of World War II, Landscape Club activities were curtailed somewhat.  Annual banquets were abandoned, and gasoline shortages put a damper on some painting excursions.  But except for the fall of 1942, exhibitions continued to be held, though much less frequently than before the war.  After the war, Landscape Club activities resumed with a new vigor and continued emphasis on painting on location and critiquing of work at informal meetings at members' homes.

Meager information from 1960s to mid-1980s

As mentioned above, data on Club activities had been collected in scrapbooks. Ultimately three scrapbooks, each containing about 140 pages of material, were filled with information covering the period 1919-1967. After 1967, the regular collection and filing of historical data tapered off drastically, and only occasionally were information items set aside in large envelopes or manila folders. There appears to have been no attempt to keep a careful and continuous accounting of Society activities between 1967 and 1985. The scrapbook records and their treasure of information were "lost" from 1967 to 1988.

Press coverage of the local art scene had already begun to decline by the 1960s, and this, combined with the desultory reporting of Club activities by the members, left a limited historical record for the 1967-1985 time period. We do know that Club members continued to be very active. Exhibitions were still held and painting excursions scheduled, often overnight, to places such as the Eastern Shore. On at least one occasion (1977) an annual dinner again took place.

Recent Actions Include Name Change, Admission of Women

It was not until the mid-1980s that information on Club activities again began to be collected on a regular basis.  The post-1985s historical record is quite complete, particularly regarding meetings where members' work was critiqued.  Of special note was the change in 1986 of the organization's name from the Landscape Club of Washington, D.C. to the Washington Society of Landscape Painters.  (Too many people thought Landscape Club members were gardeners!)  Society activities featured frequent paintouts, and at least one exhibition of members' work was held each year.  In 1993 the Society scheduled a special luncheon to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Society.  The luncheon was held, appropriately, at the Arts Club of Washington, D.C., the site of so many early exhibitions.

In 1993, the consitution was amended to admit women and the Society now includes a number of them who are ardent outdoor painters and who clearly fit the mold of the individuals to whom Charles Seaton alluded in his 1997 reference to the raison d'etre of the Ramblers, the forerunners of the current Washington Society of Landscape Painters.