The Astonishing Tale of Ludmilla and Thad Welch

Join historian Hattie Beresford as she shares a tale of starving artists whose devotion to their craft overcame inconceivable privation with inventiveness and a magical spirit of adventure.

By the time Ludmilla and Thaddeus Welch landed in Santa Barbara in 1905, they were known for their powerful skills in expressing the glory of landscape through color and light. While Thad’s focus remained in Marin, Ludmilla established herself as a valued member of the Santa Barbara Art Colony and embraced the local landscape and historic structures with her brush. Her renderings of the area’s remaining adobes are an important historic record as many of these remnants of Santa Barbara’s past slowly disappeared from the landscape…

About the Speaker

For nearly two decades Hattie Beresford has written a column for the Montecito Journal called “The Way It Was,” in which she has been able to indulge her long-standing interest in the people and events of Santa Barbara’s past. She is also a regular contributor to the Montecito Journal Magazine. She co-edited and produced the memoir of local artist Elizabeth Eaton Burton - My Santa Barbara Scrapbook, and authored Celebrating CAMA’s Centennial, and the sold-out book The Way It Was: Santa Barbara Comes of Age.

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