Charles Garabedian: A Retrospective

Organized by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, this exhibition represented the first important museum presentation and catalogue in 28 years devoted to the art of Charles Garabedian. Bringing together approximately 60 works created by the artist, the exhibition represented his entire career with an emphasis on paintings and drawings produced during the years since his first (and last) major solo museum exhibitions in 1983.

With a career that spans nearly 50 years, Garabedian explored themes of war, music, the body, dismemberment, heroism, comic pretension, love, and death—all conveyed with a sense of immediacy, intimacy, and poignancy. Underlying the work is the artist's own elegiac confrontation with the joys and struggles that pervade our daily lives.

Each painting or drawing creates its own world yet also reflects the turbulent times in which it was made. Garabedian's accomplishments and influence among artists on the West Coast in the last 30 years have been substantial. His exploration of figure and landscape paved the way for new generations of artists who demonstrated a renewed focus on imaginative representations of the figure.

This exhibition was made possible through the generosity of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Grace Jones Richardson Trust, Jill and John C. Bishop, Jr., Zora and Les Charles, Jane and Ken Anderson, Marianne and Norman F. Sprague III, LLWW Foundation, and The Broad Art Foundation.