Current exhibits
This schedule is subject to change. For media information, please contact Heidi Ehrman Donner at hdonner@stmarys-ca.edu or (925) 631-4069. For all other inquires, contact (925) 631-4349.
| UPPER GALLERIES | WILLIAM KEITH ROOM |
June 2 - August 12, 2007
Town and Country: Jessica Dunne and Louis LaBrie
The Hearst Art Gallery has paired two of the most intriguing, unusual and gifted contemporary California landscape painters for "Town and Country: Jessica Dunne and Louis LaBrie," on view from June 2 to August 12. Dunne's dramatic, expansive and atmospheric urbanscapes are presented alongside LaBrie's meticulously painted, often tiny and jewel-like vistas in one of the most visually beguiling summer landscape exhibitions ever presented by the Saint Mary's College art museum. A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.
 Dunne - Manhole Cover |
 Dunne - Velocity |
 LaBrie - Veil of Fog |
| View More... | ||
To learn more about Jessica Dunne and Louis LaBrie, the two contemporary landscape artists selected for the biennial contemporary landscape exhibition opening June 2, please visit their web sites:
www.jessicadunne.com
www.louislabrie.com
September 9 – October 14, 2007
Dreaming In Color: Aboriginal Art from Balgo
The exhibition includes 45 paintings, photographs and extensive wall text. The works are in the Kluge-Ruhe Collection at the University of Virginia. The Collection, 1600 paintings, sculptures and artifacts, and one of the finest outside Australia, was established to promote learning about Aboriginal arts and culture through a program of collection management, exhibitions, education, research and publication. Contemporary painting from Balgo, a western desert region, is adapted from traditional mark-making practices in sand drawing and painting, and body and sacred object painting. The works illustrate episodes of The Dreaming, the time of creation when powerful ancestral beings created the world and everything in it. Although Balgo artists also create and sell secular paintings, the purpose of a large part of their artistic practice is to retain and pass on traditional religious knowledge and Aboriginal culture. Much of the meaning of the vibrant and elegant images, symbols and patterns in Aboriginal painting is sacred and secret to the non-initiated viewer.
Event details tba
Kluge-Ruhe Collection website at the University of Virginia
November 3 – December 16, 2007
Footloose in Arcadia: Piedmont from 1895 through 1915
In honor of the city's centennial celebration, works by and tales about, the many artists and writers who lived in Piedmont or their found inspiration, mentors, muses, and patrons among its illustrious residents and beautiful scenery. A catalogue accompanies the exhibition. Details tba.
Coming in 2008:
- Art and Faith in Mexico
- University of California Davis Art Faculty Retrospective
- Carl Sammons (1886 – 1968)
- Keith and the Dutch Masters
All programming subject to change
William Keith Room
Through March 4, 2007
William Keith: The 1870s Paintings
The first in a series of four exhibitions featuring significant paintings from the Saint Mary's College Keith Collection, examining the development of the artist's style and influences, decade by decade. The early 1870s were pivotal in William Keith's career, beginning with a lengthy study trip to Europe. Soon after his return to California, Keith met John Muir in Yosemite. Although a close, life-long friendship formed, Muir became Keith's most demanding critic, urging him to depict the landscape with scientific accuracy. These were the years of Keith's sunlit grandeur paintings, many of them completed after sketching trips into the mountains with Muir. Yet as early as the mid-1870s, subjective elements began to appear in some of his detailed, precise compositions. In the 1870s paintings, Keith began to experiment with broader brush strokes and a more somber palette as he attempted to render nature as it made him feel. It is a fascinating place to begin a new exploration of this iconic California landscape artist.
