Carmel’s reputation as an art colony took off in the years around 1906. Mary Austin, author of The Land of Little Rain, moved to the village in 1905. The photographer Arnold Genthe arrived in 1906, and in that year the San Francisco Call gave a full page to the artists, writers and poets of Carmel-by-the-Sea.
Writers and poets such as George Sterling, Robinson Jeffers and Sinclair Lewis took part in events at the Arts and Crafts Club. Jack London described the colony in his novel The Valley of the Moon. Edward Weston came in 1929 and photographed Point Lobos for years.
Much of the art life centered on the Arts and Crafts Club, the Forest Theater and later the Carmel Art Association.