Exhibitions

Body

Current Exhibitions

 

Harmonia Rosales: ΩA Omega Alpha 

February 14 through June 23, 2024 | Opening Celebration: February 15, 5-7 p.m.

Omega Alpha brings forward a visually enriched narrative that reimagines the traditional imagery of the black body in Christian art to empower lesser-known subjects through the canon of art history. Interweaving the oral histories and stories of Afro-Cuban religions, Rosales' depictions of the black body illuminate parallels in classical Western narratives while confronting the historical language of the Eurocentric male gaze. Referencing Greek, Roman, and European imagery, Omega Alpha inverts the narrative of how faith and orthodox-based stories are told, envisioning a new beginning rising from an end.

 

Lisa Congdon: Hold it Lightly

September 13 through June 23, 2023

Opening celebration: September 14 | Artist Talk: September 15

Illustrator and fine artist Lisa Congdon's current work, Hold it Lightly, explores themes of joy, liberation, and radical inclusion, displayed on printed matter featuring her bold, colorful illustrations and hand-lettering. Created in conversation with pop artist Corita Kent, Congdon's work reflects the profound personal impact of revolutionary joy. 

 

The Decisive Moment: PhotoUrbanism in San Francisco Bay, 1930s-1960s 

February 14 through June 23, 2024 | Opening Celebration: February 15, 5-7 p.m.

Photographers interested in the ‘decisive moment’ often utilized the camera’s innate mechanical qualities to capture real-time experiences and explore modern art concepts of pattern, contrast, and light through the lens. The practice dominated mid-20th-century photography in the West. From the construction of the Bay Bridge to the revolutionaries of the Black Panthers, this exhibition features work by Ruth-Marion Baruch, John Gutmann, Pirkle Jones, Peter Stackpole, Brett Weston, and Max Yavno, whose photographs captured moments that came to define social urban history in the San Francisco Bay Area. This exhibition is organized in collaboration with Pier 24 and the Pilara Family Foundation.

 

Vignettes: Select Views of SMCMoA’s Permanent Collection 

February 14 through May 12, 2024

Vignettes bring forward curated windows into the permanent collection explored through themes, eras, and art history. Highlights include recent gifts into the permanent collection as well as the legacy collection of landscapes by William Keith. Featured works include modernist European prints by Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Ursula Fookes, Kathë Kollwitz, Marie Laurencin, and Jacques Villon: California waterways by Armin Hansen, Louis LaBrie, Bertha Stringer Lee, Gottardo Piazzoni, and Lundy Siegriest; pop art by Corita Kent and Andy Warhol; abstract expressionism by Seong Moy and Ruth Wall; and contemporary art by Joe Doyle, David Maxim, Diane Rosenblum, and Kal Spelletich.

 

 

 

2023

Corita Kent: heroes & sheroes 

Jacob Lawrence: Three Series of Prints

From the Ground Up

Art Practice Capstone: Points of View

Alondra Puentes Gallegos MFA Thesis: Hija Del Maíz - Medicina Ancestral

River of Words® 2023: The Natural World as Viewed by Young People

 

2022

Fake It Till You Make It: A Quest for Authenticity

Interdisciplinary Voice

Power & Purpose: Reflections on the African Art Collection

Creating Through Chaos: Saint Mary’s College of California Art Practice Capstone Exhibition

Andrew Mount: Stock 

 

2021

Aesthetic Forces: Nature in the Modern California Landscape, 1915–2015 

Keith + Kari: William Keith and Kari Marboe 

Collective Memories: Stonecuts from Cape Dorset 

 

2020

Feminizing Permanence 

Sign of the Times: The Great American Political Poster, 1844-2012

Senior Capstone Projects: An Instagram takeover featuring the Class of 2020 senior capstone projects 

 

2019

Kal Spelletich: Significance Machines and Purposeful Robots

R&D (Rosenblum and Doyle): New Formalism in Painting and Photography

Foad Satterfield: THINGS KNOWN

David Johnson: NOCTAMBULANT 

Emerge: Student Art Exhibition

Open Studio: Interdisciplinary Art Practice In Progress

 

2018

Paint from NatureWilliam Keith and the High Sierra

Graphicanos: Contemporary Latino Prints from the Serie Project

Stanley Koppel: Artist as Activist

Watermedia: The Color of Summer presented by the California Watercolor Association

BART: Strangers on the Train by Richard Gayton 

Into Being- The River by Diana Hobson & Susan Alexjander

Darker Shades of Red: Soviet Propaganda from the Cold War Era

 

2017

Peter Freund: IRAN|USA +other nonorientable surfaces

Annual Art Studio Student Exhibition 

Cohort 2: MFA in Dance Thesis Festival

 

2016

The American Soldier: A Photographic Tribute

Social Justice: It Happens to One, It Happens to All

Reflections in Water: Selections by the California Art Club

Watertime: A Video by David and Hi-jin Hodge

Scene/Unseen: A Group Exhibition of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs

William Keith The Beginning of the Collection 

Environmental Impact

Instagael: SMC Student Instagrams

David Maxim: Points of View

William Keith and the Battle for Hetch Hetchy

 

2015

A Fine Line: The Doctor Maurice Alberti Print Collection of European and American Masters

Luis Gutierrez: Another Kind of Truth 

Axis Mundi/Open Portals: New Works by Ron Hutt

William Keith and the Battle for Hetch Hetchy 

Bright and Beautiful: Early San Francisco Bay Area Watercolors, the Collection of Roger and Kathy Carter

Stephen Joseph: Inside Vasco Caves 

The Darker Side of William Keith: Late Paintings

Visual Language: Mystery and Meaning

Andy Warhol: Prints Polaroids and Pop

SMC Student Art Exhibit 

River Passage: New Works by Dane Mattes 

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Tom Golden Collection

Photography by Robert Gumpert: Take a Picture/ Tell a Story, Prison Series

Photography by Robert Gumpert: "I Need Some Deodorant. My Skin is Restless" Psychiatric Emergency Services

William Keith and the Native American

 

2014

Pueblo to Pueblo: The Legacy of Southwest Indian Pottery

The Native American Collection of Roger Epperson

Grace Hudson: Painter of the Pomo People

By Invitation Only: Revealing the Landscape 

The Collector's Eye: Early California Landscapes and Still Lifes

Dale Chihuly: Venetians

It's Natural: Sam Perry and Pamela Blotner 

Michael Collopy: Face to Face with Movers and Shakers

From Swords to Plowshares: Trench Art from WWI & Songs of the Patriot

 

2013

Judy Dater: Edo Redux

Malcolm Lubliner: The Automotive Landscape 

The Artist Revealed

Afterglow: Rethinking California Light and Space Art

Surfaces: Lee Saloutos

Points of View: Mary Lou Correia and Paul Kratter

Building a Collection

Marc Chagall: Stories from the Bible

Student Art Show Spring 2013

Carnaval!

In Search of the Source: The Nile and Beyond by Lockwood de Forest

Ryan Reynolds: Landscape Assembled

 

2012

The Art of the Cross

Nyame Brown: John Henry's Adventures In a Post Black World

The Missions of Will Sparks

The Nature of Collecting: The Early 20th Century Fine Art Collection of Roger Epperson

Richard Gayton: Recent Watercolors and One Square Mile

Richard McLean: Master Artist Tribute IX, Horses, Landscapes and Portraits

River of Words

The Veil: Visible and Invisible Spaces 

 

2010-2011

Pam Glover: A Life in Art

Lee and Grant

Gifted Hands: The Fine Art of Craft 

Superbly Independent: Early California Paintings

 

2009-2010

Andy Warhol: Quick Pix and Pop Icons

Ralph Borge : A Symbolic Realist and His Circle

 

2008-2009

Out of This World: Real & Imagined Landscapes of our Solar System

California in Relief

William Keith: Mountains of Shadow and Light

Sacred Mountain: Images of Mt. Diablo and Mr. Fuji

Bert Monroy: A Digital Artist Paints with Light

 

2007-2008

The Second Golden Age of Dutch Art: 19th Century Paintings from the Beekhuis Collection

Carl Sammons: California Impressionist Landscapes from the Donna Walsh Sumner Collection

You See: The Early Years of the UC Davis Art Faculty

Pinturas de Fe: The Retablo Tradition in Mexico & New Mexico

Footloose in Arcadia: Artists and Authors of Piedmont, 1890 to 1930

Dreaming In Color: Aboriginal Art from Balgo

Paper Cuts

 

2006-2007

Town and Country: Jessica Dunne and Louis Labrie

Master Artist Tribute VII Hearst Art Gallery Opens Carlos Villa Retrospective

Manuel Valencia (1856-1935): California's Native Son

 

2005-2006

Playing Around: Toys Designed by Artists

Touched by Wonder: Ethnographic Objects from the St. Mary's College Permanent Collection

Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection

Perceptions in Art and Science: Different Faces Same Truth

Pressing Matters: 500 Years of Wine in Art

Living Color: Inside the Outsiders

 

2004-2005

Early Days in California: William Keith, John Muir, and Joseph LeConte

Now and Then - Senior Thesis Exhibition and SMC Alumni Exhibition

Abstraction: Spirit and Space

Sandow Birk's Paradiso

The Holy Art of Imperial Russia

Keith's Cigar Box and Panel Paintings

Revelations and Reflections of Self-Taught Artists

Water, Land and Sky: Rediscovering A.T. DeRome

 

2003-2004

Student Art Exhibition

Art Faculty Exhibition

Winslow Homer: The Illustrator

Stephen De Staebler, a Thirty-Year Survey (1973-2003)

The Legacy of Brother Cornelius

The Art of Music

Unbounded Vistas: Artists Interpret the Northern California Landscape

 

2002-2003

SMC Student Art Exhibition

Out of Time: 20th Century Designs for the Future

Exotica: Plant Portraits from Around the World

The Mountains of California: New William Keith and John Muir Exhibit 

 

2001-2002

Kenro Izu: Light Over Ancient Angkor

Women to Women: Weaving Cultures, Shaping History

William Wolff: Printmaker 

The Teacher as Artist

Early Artists of the Bohemian Club 

Kuna Mola: Maintaining Tradition Amid Change

 

2000-2001

Instruments for a New Navigation: Sculpture, Drawings and Paintings by Morris Graves

Diamonds in the Sky: Images from the Hubbell Space Telescope

The Artist and the Bible: Twentieth Century Works on Paper

SMC Student Art Exhibition

A Sense of Place: Pam Glover and the Siegriest Legacy 

 

1999-2000

From Real Life, Richard Shaffer

A Winding River: the Journey of Contemporary Art in Vietnam

SMC Student Exhibition

George Post: A life in Watercolor

William Keith: California Awakening 

Stories Woven In: The Navajo Way of Seeing

Talking Walls Dialogue: Ingrid and Plato, Interactive Still Lives, Knit One, Swim Two

SMC Faculty Exhibition

SMC Student Exhibition

Point to Point: California Landscape Paintings 

 

1997-1998

Early California Impressionists: The Ronald E. Walker Collection

The College Collection: Twenty Years of Growth

Terry St. John 

Miseries and Misfortunes of War

Annual Student Exhibition

 

1996 - 1997

Stanley Truman: Fifty Years of Photography 

Building Bridges, Crossing Cultures

Ruth Bernhard: Master Artist Tribute IV

Mark Rothko: The Spirit of Myth, Early Paintings from the 1930's and 1940's

Mary

 

1995 - 1996

William Keith: The Collection Comes Home

Puppets of the World

Burning Lights: Spirituality, Tradition and Craft in Recent Art from the City of Angels 

Robert Kehlmann: Painting with Glass, A Retrospective 

Annual Student Exhibition

Stanley Truman: Fifty Years of Photography 

 

1994 - 1995

Jeannette Maxfield Lewis (1894-1982): A Centennial Celebration

African Alchemy: Art for Healing in African Societies 

Manuel Neri: A Sculptor's Drawings, Master Artist Tribute III 

Saint Mary's College Art Faculty: Lee Altman, Roy Schmaltz, Suzanne Schumacher. 

Icons and Easter Eggs of Imperial Russia 

Annual Student Exhibition

 

1993 - 1994

"Wonderful Colors!" The Paintings of August F. Gay

Modern British Art: Vorticism and the Grosvenor School, 1912-1935

Fascination with Trains

Selections 5: Recent Work from the Polaroid Collection 

Gregory Kondos: Yosemite and Other California Landscapes 

Student Show

 

1992 - 1993

Bicoastal Artists of the 1870's 

Tutavoh: Learning the Hopi Way

Nathan Oliveira: Figurative Works, 1958-1992 

California Metal

Bella Feldman: Sculpture

Student Show

Acalanes Union High School District Show

 

1991 - 1992

Maurice Logan, Artist and Designer 

Charles Strong: New Paintings--China, Ezra, Joan 

Kiyochika: Artist of Meiji Japan 

Before Columbus: Art of West Mexico 

Recent Acquisitions

The Crucifixion Through the Modern Eye 

Student Show

 

1990 - 1991

Personal Mythologies and Poignant Moments

Recent Acquisitions: Works on Paper in the Saint Mary's Collection

Prints of the Eighties: The BankAmerica Corporation Art Collection

Wayne Thiebaud at Seventy 

Saint Mary's Art Faculty Show: Karen Breschi, Mark McCloud, Roy Schmaltz, Suzanne Schumacher, Darwin Marable.

The Art of the Mask 

Student Show

 

1989 - 1990

Stanley Truman/Sister Adele: Photography

Wine in Art

Rupert Garcia

Jose Guadalupe Posada 

Brother Kyran Memorial Exhibition

Contemporary Landscape: New Perspectives 

Artists of Contra Costa County: An Invitational Exhibition 

If Pictures Could Talk: A Collection of California Paintings 

Student Show

 

1988 - 1989

William Keith, California's Poet Painter 

Douglas Holmes: The Memorials

Contra Costa Contemporary Collections

Post-Photo: Eleven Artists Expanding the Boundaries of Photography

Art of Our Time: Works on Paper from the Olga Hirshhorn Collection 

Student Show

 

1987 - 1988

Vestments East and West: Japanese Kesa and European Chasubles 

Collection Highlights

Art from the Computer: Computer Art Competition and "Digital Mudra" Installation by Sonya Rapoport

Six Bay Area Women Sculptors 

Student Show

 

1986 - 1987

Architectural Inspirations: Venice and Rome 

St. Mary's College Faculty Art Exhibition

Acalanes High School District Art Show

Armin Hansen: A Centennial Salute 

3 Directions in Drawing 

Student Show

Bay Currents: Furniture by Laurie Ann Campbell

 

1985 - 1986

Selections from the Saint Mary's College Collection

The MA Circle: Budapest and Vienna, 1916-1925 

Don Quixote in Art

Raymond Saunders 

Artists by Artists 

Student Show

Pieces of Paper 

 

1984 - 1985

Saints and Sinners in Master Drawings

Art by Alumni

The Color Woodcut in America 

Sculptural Paintings

Hidden Splendors: Chinese Textiles of the Qing Dynasty 

The World of Play: Children's Drawings from Moraga and Abroad

Student Show

 

1983 - 1984

Basic Black: Contemporary International Prints

Dia de los Muertos: Javier Sandoval

A Growing Circle of Friends: Art Work from Members' Collections

Two Faces of India: Rajput Miniatures and Tribal Paintings

The Subject Is Objects: Contemporary Bay Area Still-Life Paintings

Student Show

William Keith: A Changing Vision 

 

1982 - 1983

Posters of the l890s and l980s

Alex Maldonado and John Swanson 

Japanese Folk Arts and Crafts

Know What You See: The Examination and Treatment of Paintings 

Brother Giles Brom 

Poseidon's Realm: Ancient Greek Art from the Lowie Museum 

Student Show

Contra Costa Competitive: Works on Paper

Eastbay Watercolor Society Annual

 

1981 - 1982

Selections from the Permanent Collection

Engravings by William Hogarth

California Landscape Paintings from the Collection 

At Mono Lake: A Photographic Exhibition 

Student Show

 

1980 - 1981

Saint Mary's College Art Faculty

Gary Smith: Sculpture

Painted Silk by Mia Kodani and Burnished Clay by Miriam Licht

Four Americans in France, 1914-1940 (John Taylor Arms, Samuel Chamberlain, Ernest D. Roth, John W. Winkler)

 

1979 - 1980

Fire and Earth: Ancient and Traditional Ceramic Forms

The Modern Print: Recent Work from the Kala Institute

Landscapes by Linda K. Smith and Portraits by Carole Peel

The Arts and Crafts of Belgium 

Paintings by William Keith 

 

1978 - 1979

The Art of the Etruscans

Selections from the Permanent Collection

Contemporary Pots

Conservation and the Collection

The Watercolors of William Keith, 1838-1911  

The Art of the Printed Book

 

1977 - 1978

A Half-Century of Collecting: Selections from the Saint Mary's College Collection

Art from the Collection of Professor Henry and Gertrude Schaefer-Simmern

Middle Eastern Nomadic Rugs of the Nineteenth Century 

Imogen Cunningham: After Ninety