October - December 2013

The Artist Revealed: Artist Portraits and Self-Portraits

A good portrait offers the viewer more than physical features. All artists are involved with, or have a heightened interest in, creative pursuits which makes them interesting candidates for portrait subjects. While commissioned portraits often include expectations that the image be a favorable likeness of the sitter, this exhibition illustrates that self-portraits are an artist’s opportunity to make a statement. Among the artists represented in portraits or self-portraits are: Berenice Abbot, Ansel Adams, Milton Avery, Leonard Baskin, Paul Cezanne, Chuck Close, Jim Dine, Alex Katz, R.B. Kitaj, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, Rembrandt, and Edward Steichen.

On loan from the Syracuse University Art Collection.

Judy Dater: Edo Redux          

Judy Dater was drawn to portraiture early in her career and has continued to explore the power of photographic portrayals. Dater says: “People tend to reveal themselves to the camera and express something about themselves, perhaps even something hidden from themselves.” This exhibition features Dater’s work in Japan over the decades.  Curated by the artist, the exhibition includes large scale images of people in their environments from the 1960s to the present, offering stunning insights to the cultural changes over  the last 50 years. 

Malcolm Lubliner: The Automotive Landscape

As Oakland artist Lubliner writes, “I’ve photographed the urban landscape for many years focusing on two related visual stories: those places where nature and modern humans merge and where that merger is amplified by the appearance of automobiles. Cars in the landscape strike me as comical. They seem almost like alien creatures, mechanical clowns dressed in an array of costumes. They have their own world and talk to each other in parking lots but never quite relate to the arena in which they perform or to the humans who inhabit them.”

February - April 2014

From Swords to Plowshares: Metal Trench Art from World War I & World War II

The metal trench art objects in this exhibition are as varied and unique as the military and civilian artists who created them. The works date from the origins of this brass art form in the trenches of France during the First World War to post World War II pieces. Makers of trench art utilized artillery shells, bullets, shrapnel, aircraft parts, currency and other miscellaneous metal scrap and applied materials. Also on view: a selection of WW1 Red Cross and propaganda posters from the SMC collection.

Tattoos: Bodies of Art

Bodies of Art will explore the cultural and artistic significance of tattoos and how they have evolved and rapidly expanded into popular culture. Photography, video, digital art, works on paper, tools, inks, and templates will be on view, as well as an interactive opportunity for visitors to display their tattoos in the exhibition.

The Saint John’s Bible

The Saint John’s Bible is a work of art and a work of theology. In commissioning a handwritten, illuminated Bible, Saint John’s revives a tradition that has been nearly absent from the Christian world since the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century. The 20-year project brought together many of the greatest living artists, calligraphers, and illuminators who have combined traditional and contemporary techniques to create a 21st Century Bible with an ecumenical Christian approach rooted in Benedictine spirituality. The result is a spectacular living document and a monumental achievement.

A rotating selection of oil paintings by William Keith (b. Scotland 1838 - d. Berkeley 1911) from the permanent collection is on view in the Keith Gallery.