Gifted

Gifted

Selections from the collection of Santa Barbara City College 

February 27– March 27, 2009 

Opening reception: 

Friday, February 27, 5 – 7pm   

Santa Barbara City College has been the fortunate recipient of numerous gifts of art. GIFTED will highlight a selection of these donations. Local collectors generously gave the majority of artworks in this exhibition: the Barry Berkus Family, the Eli and Lee Luria Family, Garner Tullis, and J.W.& Suzanne Colin. Their collections are rich in the both quality and depth. The common focus shared by all these collectors is contemporary art. 

GIFTED will bring together a number of these gifts so viewers can experience these works together in a gallery setting. Normally these artworks are on public view in various locations on the SBCC campus.  For instance, many are found in the Luria Library which houses numerous monotypes by various artists given by Garner Tullis. He operated the Garner Tullis Workshop here in Santa Barbara that was internationally known for its preeminence in working with artists to make monotypes, a one of a kind print. 

On view will also be two newly donated sculptures by LA artist Roland Reiss, given by the Lurias, which will be seen for the first time. Among the Berkus gifts will be a monotype by John Walker. The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., has recently acquired John Walker’s monumental triptych, North Branch, 2008, 8’x 20’, which is currently on exhibition at the museum. The noted California artist Millard Sheets will be represented in the GIFTED show by serigraph print donated by J.W. & Suzanne Colin. 

GIFTED showcases other contemporary works by nationally and regionally noted artists such as Charles Arnoldi, Lynda Benglis, David Reed, Richard Ross, Italo Scanga, Rick Stitch and Catherine Lee.  Featured in this exhibition will be works on paper, ceramics, photography, painting, and sculpture. 

Charles Arnoldi
b. 1946,

 American Arnoldi is a well-respected Los Angeles artist. Early in his career, he was well known for producing sculptures using tree branches. As his work has evolved, the focus has shifted to his large and colorful geometric paintings and prints. Arnoldi graduated Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1968. From there, he won a string of awards and fellowships from such organizations as the California Arts Council, the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the Art Institute of Chicago, and twice from the National Endowment of the Arts. He has been a large commercial success, having shown in many galleries and museums all over the world. He is currently represented by Charles Cowles Gallery in New York, Modernism in San Francisco, Charlotte Jackson Fine Art in Santa Fe, Bobbie Greenfield Gallery in Santa Monica, and Imago Galleries in Palm Desert. He has had solo exhibits in such museums as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in Jacksonville Florida, the San Jose Museum of Modern Art, the Tuscon Museum of Art, and as far as the Busan Metropolitan Art Museum in Korea.    

Linda Benglis
b. 1941,

 American Raised in Louisiana, Linda Benglis received her B.F.A from Newcomb College in 1964, and promptly moved to New York. In the early 70’s she began working with polyurethane foam and collaborated with Robert Morris. From this collaboration, she created a video; Mumble (1972). In 1974, she created some controversy by appearing nude for a taboo advertisement in Art Forum magazine. Much of Benglis’ work is sculpture. She has always explored surfaces in her pieces, constantly using new materials with new and strange textures. Where color played a large part in her earlier work, she now produces intricate abstractions with neutrals and metals. Linda Benglis has collections all over the US including New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Los Angeles, as well as a collection in Australia.    

Fletcher Benton
b. 1931,

American Benton was born in Jackson, Ohio. He secured a BFA from Miami University in 1956. From 1959 to 1986, he taught at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, San Francisco Art Institute, and California State University, San Jose. He has shown in Galerie B. Haasner in Germany, the California International Arts Foundation in Los Angeles, the Klingspor Museum in West Germany, the La Jolla Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, American Pop Culture Today Laforeth Muesum in Tokyo, Neuberger Museum of Art in New York, the National Academy Museum in New York, and the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design.Fletcher Benton has won many awards including an Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, an Award of Honor for Outstanding Achievement in Sculpture from the San Francisco Arts Commission, and a Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award from the International Sculpture Center in Hamilton, New Jersey.   

Oscar Bucher

American Oscar Bucher was formerly head of SBCC Ceramic Dept for 26 years.He was an influential instructor to many area ceramic artists. His workshave been exhibited throughout the Santa Barbara region as well as Southern California. His pottery can be seen locally at Santa Barbara Arts gallery.  

Peggy Wirta Dahl

American Primarily a painter and occasional illustrator,  Peggy Dahl’s works have exhibited in Santa Barbara at Ro Snell Gallery, Contemporary Arts Forum, Channing Peake Gallery, UCSB University Art Museum  and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art as well as the Center for the Arts & Humanities, Sun Valley, Idaho  and Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles. Her work is public collections such as Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill;  Santa Barbara City College; Santa Barbara County Barry Berkus and Family Art Collection; University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara.     

Aristides Burton Demetrios
b.  1932,

American Aristides Demetrios was born and raised in Massachusetts to a classically trianed sculptor, George Demetrios (who was taught by a student of Rodin). His mother was an award winning children’s book illustrator. Aristides Demetrios graduated Harvard with a B.A, devoted three years of his life to the navy, and ended up at his father’s school for another three years. In 1963, his fountain at Stanford University earned him his first national sculpture competition. From there, he fabricated pieces for the Sacramento County Courthouse, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. After a series of public commissions, he turned to individual collectors, constructing many bronze fountains for private gardens and property. His figurative bronzes have made there way to galleries and museums. He has had shows at Stanford University Union, the De Young Museum, the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts in Carmel, the Triton Museum in Santa Clara, the Gallery Des Arts Quotadien in Paris, the Michael Dunev Gallery in San Francisco, the Herbert Palmer Gallery in Los Angeles, and the Sullivan Goss Gallery in Santa Barbara. In 2002, Demetrios was awarded the “Santa Barbara Beautiful Award” for the fabrication and design of Mentors. The founain was donated by collectors of his work; Eli Luria and Michael Towbes. Demetrios is currently showing in several galleries, including his studio. He lives and works in Montecito.    

Robert Frame

1924-1999, American Robert Frame attended Pasadena City College in Claremont. Frame acquired a number of awards in his early career, including awards from the National Academy of Design in New York and the Pasadena Art Museum. His group shows include San Francisco Museum of Art, the De Young Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Pheonix Museum of Art. Frame was a teacher of art at Santa Barbara City College between 1966 and 1986. Robert Frame died in 1999.         

Don Gummer
b. 1946,

American Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he went to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, and Graduated Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut with a BFA and MFA. His career began with smaller sculptures, progressing in to large bronzes in the ‘80’s.  His current work uses various metals, glass, and other materials. He has had upwards of 30 solo exhibits in museums and galleries, including the Sperone Westwater Gallery in New York, the Galleria delle Esposizioni Benucci in Rome, and a permanent installation in the Ten-Jin Project in Kitakyushu, Japan. Gummer has received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant as well as an award from the National Endowment of the Arts. He currently lives and works in New York, NY.   

Shoji Hamada
1894 – 1978,

Japanese  Famous ceramist and museum offical.. He began a lifelong friendship with Kawai Kanjiro when the two met around 1912 as young students. Later on he befriended English potter Bernard Leach and philosopher Yanagi Soetsu; they started the folk art movement (Mingei movement) together. Hamada established his studio in Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture, and his mingei works have been held in the highest esteem in Japan as well as abroad. Hamada was designated a Living National Treasure in 1955. In 1962, he became head of the Japan Folk Art Museum (Nihon Mingei-Kan) in Tokyo, and in 1968 he was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit.   

Paul Jenkins

b. 1923,

American Paul Jenkins entered the Art Students League of New York in 1948 and studied under Yasuo Kuniyoshi until 1952.  In 1953, he was pouring paint on canvas to achieve a dense viscosity of impacted color and achieved prominence in New York and Europe for these early abstractions.  His first solo exhibition in New York was in 1956 at the Martha Jackson Gallery, one of the flagship galleries at that timeOver more than five decades, his paintings have been widely exhibited around the world.  His first American retrospective, organized by Philippe de Montebello and Gerald Nordland, was held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (1971), traveling to the San Francisco Museum of Art (1972).  Major retrospectives were held at the Palm Springs Desert Museum, Musée Picasso, Antibes; Kunstverein, Cologne; Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Charleroi.  In 1999, the Hofstra Museum presented a retrospective of his early paintings from 1954 to 1960.  In 2000, the Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza held an exhibition of his large-scale canvases together with watercolors.  The Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille held, in 2005, an exhibition of his large-scale works including painted elements for the décor of his dance-drama performed at the Paris Opera (1987). His works are found in international museum and private collections including the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Brooklyn Museum in New York; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery, the CorcoranGallery and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.; the Tate Gallery in London; Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.   

Catherine Lee
b. 1950,

American Catherine Lee was born in Pampa Texas. Lee was a well-known Minimalist in the 70's. She worked in monochrome and rarely used any narrative. Mostly sculpture, Lee works with several materials, including ceramic, fiberglass, bronze, concrete, and steel. Lee has shown in the Tate Gallery in London, the Gallery Lelong in New York, and the Mizuma Art Gallery in Tokyo, Japan, just to name a few. She taught at Columbia University New York, NY, and University of Texas San Antonio.     

Sam Messer
b. 1955,

American Messer was born in New York. He secured a BFA from Cooper Union, New York, in 1976. In 1981, he earned an MFA from Yale University. His work can be seen in collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Yale University Art Gallery. His awards include a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant in 1984, the Engelhard Award in 1985, a Pollack-Krasner Foundation grant in 1993, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996. Examples of recent work would include collaborations with writer Paul Auster on The Story of My Typewriter, and writer Denis Johnson in Cloud of Chalk. Messer was given the position of senior critic at Yale in 1994, and is now the associate dean and professor at Yale. He is presently represented by Nielsen Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts.    

Richard Nonas
b. 1936,

American Richard Nonas was born in New York City. He was trained as an anthropologist at the University of Michigan, Lafayette College and Columbia University, NY and University of North Carolina and spent ten years among the Canadian Inuit and tribes in the desert of Mexico. A social anthropologist for ten years, he became interested in the sculpture of the first generation of Minimalist artists He has exhibited his sculpture nationally and internationally and has shown at the Musée d’art Modern et Contemporain in Geneva, Switzerland, and completed permanent installations of his sculpture in Austria, France and Sweden.     

Jeff Oestreich
b. 1947,

American Jeff Oestreich is a ceramic artist who works in Minnesota. He primarily makes functional work with minimal surface decoration and usually soda fired glazes. In his own works, "Function is at my core...never take function for granted..." He studied at the Bemidji State University, and the University of Minnesota with Warren MacKenzie. He also apprenticed under Bernard Leach for two years. Oestreich has given clay workshops throughout the United States and abroad. His work can be found in the collections of the Everson Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Kansas City Museum, 
the Fine Art Museum of Western Carolina University; and in museum in the United Kingdom Taiwan.   

American  Reiss is a painter and sculptor from Southern California who has exhibited extensively in the United States and abroad. His work has been seen at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Documenta in Kassel, Germany. Exhibitions include museums in Brazil, Mexico, China, Canada, Italy, Germany, Japan and Taiwan. He is the recipient of four NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) grants and of more than forty prizes and awards. His work is located in many public, corporate and private collections, including MOCA, LA and LACMA.       

Richard Ross
b. 1947,

 American Ross was born in New York. After getting his BA from the University of Vermont, he secured an MFA from the University of Florida. Since 1977, he has been a teacher at UCSB. He has shown at the Santa Barbara Art Museum, ACME Los Angeles, Ronald Feldman Gallery, Otis College of Art & Design, the Getty Museum, the Speed Museum in Louisville Kenuckey, and the Gallery of Contemporary Photography in Los Angeles. His work has been used by such prestigious publications as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Newsweek, Discover, Vogue, and Time. The Getty Conservation Institution has recently been using him as their primary photographer. Not only has he been a recipiant of the NEA and Fulbright Fellowships in the past, he has also recently received a Guggenheim Fellowship Award.    

David Row
b. 1949,

American David Row was born in Portland, Maine. He received both a B.A. and M.F.A from Yale University in the early 1970’s. For his painting, he has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and has held the title of Associate Professor at Princeton University. He has had exhibitions in the Fuji Gallery in Tokyo, the Pamela Auchincloss Gallery in New York City, the Galerie Thomas von Lintel Munich in Germany, the Musée des Beaux Arts La Chaux de Fonds in Switzerland, the Betsy Senior Gallery in New York, the the Marella Arte Contemporanea Milano, and the Kunsthallen Braenderigarden in Germany. He currently lives and works in New York City.    

Italo Scanga
1932 - 2001,

Italian Scanga was born in Lago, Italy. As a boy during World War II he worked as a cabinetmaker’s apprentice, and learned sculpture from a professional religious sculptor. He moved to the United States in 1947 with his parents. In the early 1960’s he received a BA and MA from Michigan State University, and got his first teaching job at the University of Wisconson. He would later go on to have a full and long lived teaching career at many institutions. In the early 1970’s he exhibited work that he had collaborated with Dale Chihuly on, in the Museum of Art at Vassar College in New York, and had a solo exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.  He has had countless exhibitions at a myriad of different institutions including the Neuberger Museum at the State University of New York, the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Oakland Museum of Art, the New Britain Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Museum of Contempoary Art in Chicago, the Museum Folkwang in West Germany, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Isetan Museum in Tokyo, and the Guggenheim Museum of Art in New York.     

Linda Sikora
b. 1960,

Canadian Sikora is a ceramic artist from Canada and currently lives in Alfred Station, NY.  She received her diploma of Fine Arts from David Thompson University Center, Nelson, British Columbia and holds a B.F.A. from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax. She alsoreceived her M.F.A. from the University of Minnesota. Sikora's work can be found in numerous collections, among them the Arkansas Arts Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Northern Clay Center.     

Jerry Smith
b. 1941,

Canadian Jerry SmithJerry Smith was born in Kwakwaka'wakw,  British Columbia. Kleesilageelauck: Son of the Sun. “Here is a portion of a favorite Kwakiutl myth. Kleesilageelauck was born in Village Island. His mother was a mink, his father was the Sun, his aunts were the clouds, and his uncles were the mountains. In this part of the myth he wanted to go up and visit his father the Sun. This was arranged — with one condition: that he be very careful with his aunts. Well, he got up to visit his father; but he was a mischievous character, and he started moving his aunts, the clouds, around. This caused the Sun to become very hot on the mountains (his uncles) and they began to crack. The Sun found out about this, and scolded Kleesilageelauck, and in his anger threw him back to earth. Kleesilageelauck continued on his mischievous way." 

Rick Stitch
b. 1949,

American Stitch was born in Glendale, and graduated San Diego State University in 1971. In 1978 he became a teacher at the College of Creative Studies at UCSB. He began teaching at the Santa Barbara City College in the Adult Education department. His exhibitions have taken place in such institutions as Edward Cella Gallery, Santa Barbara, the Morgan Thomas Gallery in Santa Monica, the Los Angeles Louver Gallery, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the McLaren Center in Los Angeles, the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, the Eaton/Shoen Gallery in San Francisco, the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, the San Francisco Arts Institute, Otis Parson’s Gallery in Los Angles, the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Gallerie de Promenade Platz in Germany, the Newport Harbor Art Museum in Newport Beach, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.     

John Walker
b. 1939,

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Friday – Saturday   10am – 4pm

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Dane Goodman, director

Atkinson Gallery
Santa Barbara City College
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