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At Home and Abroad: California Paintings from the Emmons Collection
September 27, 2003 through January 25, 2004
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Work done by well-known California artists working in Europe, including Colin Campbell Cooper, Jules Page, and Edgar Payne, demonstrates the influence of foreign travel and study on the California regional tradition. Paintings of California-from a delicate 1924 Percy Gray watercolor of Monterey Bay to Glenna Hartmann’s view of Santa Barbara’s waterfront on a sparkling Christmas day in 2002- exemplify how California artists have continually found inspiration in the land, atmosphere, light, and color of the Golden State, much as French artists were drawn to Southern France.
Other artists in the exhibition include modernists Dan Lutz and Millard Sheets, contemporary painter Harry Carmean, and Oak Group artists Bjorn Rye and Meredith Brooks Abbott. The presence of several generations of painters illustrates the link between regional painters as colleagues, instructors, and students.
Known primarily for their collection of 19th –century French paintings, Robert and Christine Emmons have made California paintings an important and growing subset of their collection. As collectors with a passion for French art, the Emmons recognize the historic dialogue that existed between French and American artists, and they have captured that aesthetic debate within their collection. The thread of this artistic conversation is woven throughout the work in At Home and Abroad.
Risking the Abstract: Mexican Modernism and the Art of Gunther Gerzso
July 12 through October 19
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Gunther Gerzso, Plano rojo (Red Plane), 1963, oil on Masonite. The Gelman Collection, Courtesy of the Vergel Foundation, New York.
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Having created a personal and poetic style of abstraction rooted in nature, architecture, and the human figure, Gerzso pioneered a new direction in modern Mexican painting at the mid-20th century. He looked beyond the socially committed and dramatically expressive mural painting of the Three Great Ones (Los Tres Grandes)—Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco—but was as passionately committed to his native Mexico as the muralists were. He studied its past and observed its present, transforming the elicited thoughts and feelings into abstract “plastic poems” about his personal, internal experiences.
A multi-faceted artist, Gerzso also gained renown as one of the greatest set designers ever of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. Working with major directors of modern Mexican films like Emilio Fernández, Alejandro Galindo, and Luis Buñuel, as well as with the major stars of Mexico’s silver screen, among them Dolores Del Río, Maria Felíx, and Pedro Armendáriz, he won many awards, including an Ariel—Mexico’s equivalent of Hollywood’s Oscar.
This exhibition was organized by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in cooperation with the Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, through the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes and the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico, and was made possible through the generous support of Charles A. Storke, The Cheeryble Foundation, Jon B. and Lillian Lovelace, Eli and Leatrice Luria, The Grace Jones Richardson Trust, Larry and Astrid Hammett, Houston and Anne Harte, Santa Barbara Bank & Trust, The J. Paul Getty Grant Program, The Challenge Fund, The Capital Group, Santa Barbara Museum of Art Women’s Board, The National Endowment for the Humanities, and Santa Barbara Museum of Art Visionaries.
Richard Ross Photography: Gathering Light
June 28 through September 28
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Richard Ross, Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, Scotland,1993, chromogenic print. Courtesy of the artist.
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From the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu to remote 12th-century pagodas in Myanmar, the photographer has gone in search of that transforming moment that envelopes time, space, and object. Ross takes the viewer to temples and tombs, ruins and churches, casinos and movie sets, and in each setting—sacred or profane—he photographs without artificial illumination.
Communicating a profound and expansive silence, these images of places seen are engrained with the past, with the traces and scars that form the memory of history. It is this history within a history that gives Ross’ images their particular resonance.
Gathering Light, one part of a three-part exhibition, is organized by the Speed Museum, Louisville, Kentucky. It is presented in collaboration with the Contemporary Arts Forum in Santa Barbara, whose exhibitions Fovea and Leelacyd are on view concurrently.
The exhibitions at both institutions and related events have been made possible through the generosity of Jill and John C. Bishop, Jr.
California/Color
June 14 through September 21
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Arthur Tress, Waterlilies, 1988, silver dye bleach print. SBMA, Gift of the artist.
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A classic, elegant car detail, captured by John Kiewit, offers a direct contrast to Jane Gottlieb’s hand-painted, gold-lamé Draped Bentley and to Catherine Spence’s larger-than-life toy car filled with trash, but each speaks in its own way to the automobile-dependent way of life in California. Tourism, sun worship, and blazing color illuminated by semi-arid desert light are reflected in Claire Steinberg’s Mondrian’s Door and in Roger Minick’s humorous image entitled I Never Get Lost. Added to the mix are surreal still life images by Jo Whaley and by Arthur Tress from his series Fish Tank Sonata.
The work of California photographers is an important area of focus within the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s permanent collection, and this exhibition reflects our ongoing commitment to collect film-based work by artists who live in the Pacific Rim.
Electronic Minimalism: Nam June Paik’s TV Clock
Through June 15
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Nam June Paik, TV Clock, 1963 (1989 version), video installation with 24 manipulated 19” color televisions. SBMA, Museum purchase with funds provided by the Grace Jones Richardson Trust, Lillian and Jon B. Lovelace, Leatrice and Eli Luria and the Luria Foundation, Zora and Les Charles and the Cheeryble Foundation, Wendy and Elliot Friedman, and Lord and Lady Ridley-Tree.
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Created by Paik in the early 1960s, this room-sized installation stands at the beginning of a career devoted to mining the creative potential of television and exploring the impact of electronic media on contemporary art and culture.
Paik’s TV Clock, inspired by the artist’s involvement with the neo-Dada art movement Fluxus of the 1960s, was also contemporaneous with Minimalism and reflects aspects of this parallel trend in abstract painting and sculpture.
Painting California: Landscapes from the Permanent Collection
Through June 8
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Lockwood de Forest, Untitled, December 8, 1905, oil on paper. SBMA, Gift of the estate of Alice de Forest Sedgwick.
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De Forest—decorator, importer, architectural consultant, and painter—studied and traveled with the eminent artist Frederick Church and, following the example of his mentor, honed his skills painting oil sketches from nature. These sketches, made both before and after de Forest settled in Santa Barbara in 1912, are a visual journal of his extensive travels, capturing the atmosphere, transient light effects, and rapidly recorded details of the varied landscapes of California.
The carefully finished landscapes in oil by William Keith, in contrast, reflect that artist’s European influences—his study in Germany and France, as well as his participation in the lively art centers of New York and Boston. In his earlier works, he carefully arranged the elements of the composition, manipulating color, light, and details to create a harmonized scene instead of a direct study from nature. His later works, under the influence of the French Barbizon painters, are often dark and moody, and incorporate his personal spiritual interpretation of nature.
A Decade of Collecting
March 8 through June 15
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Alberto Korda, Guerrillero Heroico, 1969/1989, gelatin silver print. SBMA, Museum purchase with funds provided by Mrs. Rowe S. Giesen.
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The exhibition is also a fitting tribute to the many donors and collectors who have helped to build and to shape this important collection of 6,000 prints over the past decade. The images on view span more than a century in the history of the medium, represent the depth and breadth of many areas in the collection, and speak to the many uses of photography. Traditional landscapes, portraiture, and documentary photographs share space with conceptual, post-modernist works. From Carleton Watkins' serene landscape of Lake Tahoe, taken in 1880, to the evocative, highly manipulated image of O. Winston Link's night train, A Decade of Collecting celebrates the synergy that emerges from these diverse images of varied origins and from the vision and support of dedicated donors.
This exhibition has been made possible by the generous support of Mr. Eric Skipsey.
Modern British Masters
March 1 through June 22
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Percy Wyndham Lewis, Portrait of Ezra Pound, ca. 1920, charcoal and black grease pencil on paper. SBMA, Gift of Wright S. Ludington.
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The SBMA has a strong collection of works by many of the best known artists working in England from 1900 to the 1980s. This exhibition of paintings, drawings, watercolors, and sculptures begins with the pre-World War I period and explores the varying directions taken by English artists as they endeavored to find their own style apart from their French contemporaries. On view are works by such artists as Wyndham Lewis, Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, Paul Nash, and others, as well as a major painting by Ben Nicholson, a recent gift being exhibited for the first time.
Paris, Turn-of-the-Century
March 1 through June 22 2003
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Henri Rivière, La Tour en Construction, 1902, color lithograph. SBMA, Gift of Sara and Armond Fields.
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Offering a vivid illustration of the many different types of graphic arts that encouraged new forms of artistic expression at the turn of the 19th century, the Museum's collection of posters, illustrated books, theater programs, periodicals, drawings, paintings, and memorabilia emphasizes the broad range of artists active in Paris around 1900. Included is material from the great International Expositions of 1889 and 1900, an Art Nouveau lithograph by Alphonse Mucha, and posters by Steinlen.
Art, Politics, and Censorship in 19th-Century France
March 1 through June 22 2003
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Auguste Desperret, Gratitude Is the Virtue of Kings, lithograph. SBMA, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Kadison.
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This exhibition examines an earlier, troubled period in the history of French printmaking, a time when government abuses and corruption were represented in caricatures and satirical prints by Honoré Daumier and his contemporaries. Included are numerous rare prints in which the King, Louis-Philippe, is represented as a pear (alluding to his physique) as a way to get around laws forbidding artists to reproduce him in their satirical prints, and the "Mensuelle" prints, sold to pay the fines of artists arrested for their caricatures.
Modern French Masters
March 1 through June 22 2003
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Edgar Degas, Ballet Dancer Resting, ca. 1900-1905, charcoal on cardboard. SBMA, Gift of Wright S. Ludington.s
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This exhibition features some of the Museum's most important works from the first half of the 20th century, including five drawings by Pablo Picasso spanning the period from his early years to 1967; gifts from four different donors combine to create an impressive overview of the career of one of the 20th-century's greatest draftsmen. Wright S. Ludington's key role as an early donor is dramatically illustrated in signature works by Picasso, Matisse, Degas—while other donors' gifts complement these with a superb sampling of work by such artists as Odile Redon, André Derain, and Joan Miró.
Stilled Moments: The Photographs of William Heick
Through March 23, 2003
Powerful artistic influences, his training as an artist and social documentarian, and his experience with the movie camera combined to form William Heick’s particular conception of the world around him. After World War II, when he served as a photographer for Navy intelligence in the Pacific theater, he furthered his studies in San Francisco under Ansel Adams and Minor White and became good friends with photographers Dorothea Lange and Imogen Cunningham. He enjoyed the company of artists like Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, and Elmer Bischoff as he took classes in film, painting, and sculpture.
In 1950 the artist joined Orbits Films, a documentary film company sponsored by Robert Gardner of the Harvard Film Study Center. A review of Heick’s film, Mark Tobey, Artist, which appeared in the Saturday Review of Literature, noted that "the stunning attractiveness of its color photography and internal composition is rarely seen on the screen." Many other films and documentary photographic projects followed, and the name William Heick is far better known in cinematic circles than in photographic ones. However, the artist’s 35mm camera has travelled nearly everywhere with him over the past 60 years, ready to capture a glance or nuance. Benevolent, amused, and always scanning the scene, William Heick is indeed a master of the moment.
photoGENEsis: Opus 2
Through February 9, 2003
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Roman Vishniac, DNA, Amino Acid, Nitrobacter, 1960s, dye-transfer prints. Courtesy Charles Wehrenberg and Sally Larsen.
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As words like "DNA" and "genome" have become part of the public discourse, and new words like "transgenic species," "cloning," and "proteomics" continue to enter our vocabulary, artists, like others, are exploring the new terrain. In planning the exhibition, the SBMA issued a call for entries in the New York Times, ARTnews, and Art in America which drew over 200 submissions from artists working in film-based mediums. More than 40 artists were selected for inclusion, each of whom is represented by several images organized into four distinct categories.
"Decoding the Science" features works by artists who are scientifically literate and whose work elucidates and explores genetic research. Images by artists whose work stands as visual metaphors for scientific inquiry are found in "Exploring the Metaphorical." Questions about the unprecedented and unforeseen possibilities of the genetic age are raised by other artists in "Issues and Unknowable Possibilities." "Discovering the Double Helix" contains pioneering photographs produced prior to the genome mapping project, an epic venture of discovery that began 50 years ago with the identification of the double helix structure of DNA.
The exhibition does not purport to answer any philosophical questions about the relationship between art, society, and science, nor does it attempt to pass moral judgment on such issues as cloning and genetically modified foods. Instead, the works on view examine the discoveries, issues, questions, and promises raised by the genetic age, and demonstrates that culture has not faltered before the new truths of biology, but rather has incorporated them.
photoGENEsis: Opus 2 is sponsored by The Charles and Mildred Bloom Fund and JGS, Inc.
Siqueiros Plus! Great Works from the Collection of Latin American Art
Through March 2, 2003
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David Alfaro Siqueiros, Autorretrato (Self-Portrait), 1936, black-and-white lithograph. SBMA, Museum purchase.
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The works on view in Siqueiros Plus! range from a core group of paintings and drawings donated by the pioneering scholar of modern Mexican art, Dr. MacKinley Helm, to many new acquisitions that together commemorate the excellence and range of the Museum’s Latin American holdings.
Since its founding in 1941, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art has consistently collected and exhibited Latin American art. The Museum’s Latin American collection was officially launched when the institution received a major gift of art in the late 1950s from Dr. Helm and his wife. In 1994, with the sizeable acquisition of major contemporary works including pieces by Cuban-born Luis Cruz Azaceta and Argentinean Miguel Angel Ríos, the Museum’s Latin American holdings became firmly established as one of its principal modern and contemporary collecting areas. The collection was further augmented in 1997 with the acquisition of Composition, 1932, a major Constructivist canvas by international modernist Joaquín Torres-García, and again, in 1998, with an oil canvas by the modern Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo entitled Noche y día. Le Temps mange la vie/El Tiempo se come a la vida (Time Eats Life to the Core) 1961, by Mexico’s premier abstract painter, Gunther Gerzso, is the Museum’s most recent acquisition of a major work by a Latin American artist.
Siqueiros Plus! Great Works from the Collection of Latin American Art has been made possible through the generous support of Larry and Astrid Hammett.
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In the early 1950s, recalling those who had most influenced his career, Edward Weston steadfastly declared that Margrethe Mather was "the first important person in my life." He was, by turns, passionately in love with her, frustrated with her lack of dependability, stimulated by her intellectual curiosity, alarmed by her lifestyle, challenged by her talent, and influenced by her eye. The two met in 1913 and over the next dozen years, became companions, business associates, and for a few days, lovers. In 1921 they even worked together as full-fledged artistic partners, co-signing the photographs they produced, in a relationship unique in Weston's career. When Weston departed for Mexico in 1923, he entrusted his Glendale studio to Mather's care. But by 1925, she had lost interest in sustaining the business and drifted back to her old bohemian haunts on Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles. She continued to take photographs sporadically until the mid-1930s when she appears to have turned her back on photography altogether. 
Until now, Mather has existed only through the commentary of Weston and William Justema, another artist friend, and a smattering of information collected by Weston biographer Ben Maddow and Daybooks editor Nancy Newhall. Little has been revealed about Mather's childhood in Salt Lake City, her arrival in California, her mentors and friends, her political and artistic affiliations, and her life after she withdrew from photography. She has remained a mysterious figure behind the massive reputation of Weston. 
