an American artist active in France, introduced the Impressionists and pastel to her friends in Philadelphia and Washington. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Time Line of Art History: Nineteenth Century American Drawings: On the East Coast of the United States, the Society of Painters in Pastel was founded in 1883 by William Merritt Chase, Robert Blum, and others. The Pastellists, led by Leon Dabo, was organized in New York in late 1910 and included among its ranks Everett Shinn and Arthur Bowen Davies. On the American West Coast the influential artist and teacher Pedro Joseph de Lemos, who served as Chief Administrator of the San Francisco Art Institute and Director of the Stanford University Museum and Art Gallery, popularized pastels in regional exhibitions. Beginning in 1919 de Lemos published a series of articles on "painting" with pastels, which included such notable innovations as allowing the intensity of light on the subject to determine the distinct color of laid paper and the use of special optics for making "night sketches" in both urban and rural settings. His night scenes, which were often called "dreamscapes" in the press, were influenced by French Symbolism, and especially Odilon Redon. Pastels have been favored by many modern and contemporary artists because of the medium's broad range of bright colors. Recent notable artists who have worked extensively in pastels include Fernando Botero, Francesco Clemente, Daniel Greene, Wolf Kahn, Paula Rego and R. B. Kitaj. Pastels See also Caran d'Ache (company) Color theory Tortillon References and sources References Sources Pilgrim, Dianne H. "The Revival of Pastels in Nineteenth-Century America: The Society of Painters in Pastel". American Art Journal, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Nov. 1978), pp. 43–62. . Jeffares, Neil. Dictionary of Pastellists Before 1800. London: Unicorn Press, 2006. . Further reading Saunier, Philippe & Thea Burns. (2015) The art of the pastel. Abbeville Press. (Translated by Elizabeth Heard) External links Art du Pastel en France Pastel society of eastern Canada Pastel society of America Dictionary of pastellists before 1800 Visual arts materials Visual arts media Visual arts