the college collection: twenty years of growth
MORAGA -- To commemorate its twentieth anniversary, the Hearst Art Gallery of Saint Mary's College will feature many of the finest works of art donated or purchased since the Gallery opened in October 1977. "The College Collection: Twenty Years of Growth" opens Saturday, Sept. 21, and continues through Sunday, Dec. 14. Many recent acquisitions will be on view for the first time.
Among the highlights are works by some of California's most influential artists: landscape paintings and prints by William Keith, Roi Partridge and Wayne Thiebaud; figurative prints and drawings by Manuel Neri and Nathan Oliveira; and photographs by Ruth Bernhard and Greg MacGregor.
Works of anthropological as well as artistic significance include figurative wood carving from Africa, ceramic sculpture and vessels from Mexico and Nicaragua, and Oceanic ceremonial objects. The Gallery's major European acquisition, a 1905 painting by post-impressionist Emile Bernard, "View of Tonnerre-sur-Yonne," will be on view for the first time in more than a decade. Works by Carl Oscar Borg, Norton Bush, Eric Gill, Morris Graves, John Haley, Armin Hansen, Gregory Kondos, Maurice Logan, and Rufino Tamayo have also been selected.
The College has collected and exhibited art since the early 1930s and owns more than 150 works by California's late 19th century master of the landscape, William Keith. The Keith Room of the Hearst Art Gallery offers visitors a rotating selection of paintings by Keith and his contemporaries as well as a recent video on the life and work of Keith and his close friend John Muir, by the award-winning video firm, Studio Miramar of San Francisco. The video, along with the original Keith biography of the artist by the College's first gallery director and professor of art, Brother F. Cornelius Braeg, FSC, and a new edition of the Keith Collection catalogue, are available for purchase in the Gallery.
Introduction
When the Hearst Art Gallery first opened its doors in October, 1977, there were about 700 art objects in the Saint Mary's College Collection. Now the College owns, and the Gallery staff manages, more than 2,200 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and three-dimensional objects. This exhibition presents a small sampling of the kinds of art works we have acquired over the past twenty years, mostly through generous gifts from artists and collectors. As the collection grows, it develops in both breadth and depth. Before the 1990s it consisted almost entirely of pre-1970 American and European art, with a small group of ancient ceramics of the Old and New Worlds. We have not attempted (nor had the resources) to develop a comprehensive, encyclopedic art collection, but we have branched out into a few new areas during these twenty years. For example, we have welcomed several sizable recent donations of African carvings and other indigenous artifacts since they coincided very nicely with the development of an anthropology program at Saint Mary's and a commitment by the College to celebrate cultural diversity.
We have also made a conscious effort to build the collection in two areas: California landscapes and Christian imagery. These two themes reflect the dual roots of the collection in Brother Cornelius's extensive study of landscape painter William Keith and in the acquisition by the College over many years of art works reflecting its Catholic character.
The works on view represent less than one-tenth of those acquired since 1977. Narrowing down the selection was not easy, and I hope no one who finds a gift of theirs missing in the exhibition will feel slighted. My main goal was to provide a representative overview of the ways in which this collection has grown. I hope our regular visitors will enjoy this trip down memory lane as I have, and that all who see this show will make some exciting new discoveries about the Saint Mary's College Collection.
Ann Harlow, Director
