San Gregorio Beach

Leon Goldin

Leon Goldin was teaching in New York in 1973 when he returned to California to do this expressive color monotype of San Gregorio Beach, which he gave as a gift to his old friends from his Iowa days with Lasansky, Richard and Peggy Bowman. Goldin attacks the paper with short, direct strokes and a dark yellow fogged sunset that flows across the surface in a threatening way.

San Gregorio Beach is an estuary south of Half Moon Bay on the Northern California coast. San Gregorio Creek widens to form a small freshwater lagoon in the park behind a sand berm, or barrier beach, which typically blocks the mouth of the creek, forcing the creekwaters to flow underfoot as they seep into the Pacific Ocean.

San Gregorio Beach is part of the California State Park System, the beach lies just west of the intersection of California State Route 1 and State Route 84.