Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
Kansas City, MO
816-753-5784
The Lighter Side of Bay Area Figuration
Humorous, whimsical and satirical works of art by San Francisco Bay artists are on display at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art's new exhibition "The Lighter Side of Bay Area Figuration." On view through June 18, 2000, the show features 56 works by artists such as Wayne Thiebaud, Robert Arneson, Roy De Forest, Richard Diebenkorn, and Viola Frey.
"This
exhibition will remind people that it's OK to laugh out loud inside a museum.
These artists in San Francisco's Bay Area -- often excluded from exposure
in New York and Los Angeles -- long have used humor as a vehicle for their
'seriously' funny art," said Kemper Museum Curator Dana Self.
(left: Wayne Thiebaud, Cakes and Pies, 1994-95. Collection of Kemper
Museum of Contemporary Art, gift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation.
© Wayne Thiebaud VAGA, New York, NY. Photo, Don Wayne)
Comic art in the Bay area began to flourish during the late 1950s in deliberate defiance of New York's avant-garde. San Francisco's distance from the center of commerce and criticism fostered a renegade mentality and a tendency toward personal forms of expression. Bucking mainstream trends by combining humor with lowbrow artistic media and techniques became a badge of honor for many Bay Area artists.
The
hub of humorous figurative art was the University of California in Davis,
a sleepy and relatively remote campus town 70 miles north of San Francisco.
Although their aesthetics differed, most of the Davis artists explored humorous
narratives, whether in clay sculpture or representational painting. The
UC-Davis art department included artists Arneson, De Forest, Thiebaud, Manuel
Neri, and William Wiley. There, Thiebaud painted his whimsical still lifes
of ordinary objects from gumball machines and yo-yos to pies and cakes,
like the exhibition's painting Cakes and Pies, 1994-95. Roy De Forest
painted his canvases filled with wild-eyed, pointy eared dogs, and printmaker
William Wiley produced his quirky alter ego, "Mr. Unatural." (left:
Joan Brown, Portrait of Bob for Bingo, 1960, oil paint oncanvas,
29 x 28 inches, Collection of Joyce and Jay Cooper, AZ, Photo, Jay Cooper)
Arneson was the most influential artist to emerge from
Davis in the 1960s, spearheading the figurative clay movement with humorous
sculpture. Arneson's wit and satire often took on political figures and
his 
artistic
heroes, lampooning everyone from Ronald Reagan to famous painter Pablo Picasso
whose likeness is found in the 1980 sculpture Pablo Ruiz with
an Itch. About his art, Arneson said, "The things that I'm really
interested in as an artist are the things you can't do--and that's really
to mix humor and fine art. I'm not being silly about it. I'm serious about
the combination. Humor is generally low art, but I think humor is very serious
-- it points out the fallacies of existence." (right: Roy De
Forest, Country Dog Gentlemen, 1972, polymer on canvas, 66 3/4 x
97 inches, Collection of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. Gift of
Hamilton-Wells Collection. © Roy De Forest. Photo, Don Myer)
Students who emerged from the Davis art program include Deborah Butterfield, David Gilhooly, Bruce Nauman and Peter VandenBerge. Ceramist David Gilhooly's zany frogs and Peter VandenBerge's "carrot-people" followed Arneson's example. VandenBerge's carrot works were later replaced by ceramic busts of persons sporting whimsical headwear, like 1998's Hostess, a larger-than-life portrait of woman with a teapot perched on top of her head.
In the early '70s, the Davis artists exhibited under the
banner "Nut Art," but by then the action had 
shifted to Berkeley and Oakland, CA, where a group
of satirical painters gathered. These artists combined humor with "bad"
techniques to rebel against the mainstream models. But where the Davis artists
produced lighthearted, playful art, the East Bay painters preferred scorching
humor and satire. James Albertson parodies middle America family life with
excoriating wit. Robert Colescott deals with stereotypical perceptions of
African-American sexuality in works like Les Demoiselles D'Alabama vestidas,
a commentary on Picasso's famous painting Les Demoiselles d 'Avignon..
(right: Raimonds Staprans,Way Too Many Unruly Oranges, 1998,
oil paint on canvas, 48 x 43 inches, Collection of the artist, San Francisco,
CA. © Raimonds Staprans, Photo, Almac Camera)
A 72-page catalog, written by exhibition curator Susan Landauer, chief curator, San Jose Museum of Art, accompanies "The Lighter Side of Bay Area Figuration." The catalog, featuring color images of works in the exhibition, is available in the Museum's gift shop.. After closing at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, the exhibition will be on view September 3 through October 29, 2000, at the San Jose Museum of Art.
Read more about the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Resource Library Magazine
Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line to see enlargements.
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Resource Library features these essays concerning Northern California art:
Landscape Painters of Northern California 1870-1930 by Harvey L. Jones
The Carmel Monterey Peninsula Art Colony: A History by Barbara J. Klein
The San Francisco Art Association by Betty Hoag McGlynn
The Santa Cruz Art League by Betty Hoag McGlynn
The Carmel Art Association by Betty Hoag McGlynn
Monterey: The Artist's View, 1925 - 1945 by Kent Seavey
The Society of Six by Terry St. John
Towards Impressionism in Northern California by Raymond L. Wilson
and these articles:
Artists at Continent's End: The Monterey Peninsula Art Colony, 1875-1907 is a 2006 exhibit organized by the Crocker Art Museum, including some 70 paintings, photographs and works on paper drawn from museums and private collections throughout California and beyond. It features work by eight artists of major importance to California's, and America's, art history -- Jules Tavernier, William Keith, Charles Rollo Peters, Arthur Mathews, Evelyn McCormick, Francis McComas, Gottardo Piazzoni and photographer Arnold Genthe. The exhibition also includes the work of more than 25 other artists, both well- and little-known, who each contributed to the reputation of what is now widely recognized as one of America's most important art colonies.
The Art Of Mount Shasta is a 2010 Turtle Bay Museum at the Turtle Bay Exploration Park exhibit for which William Miesse and Robyn G. Peterson, Ph.D, co-curators, say; "Most of the works in this exhibition, lent by museums, institutions, and private collections from around the country, stem from that San Francisco Art Boom. And these paintings are only the tip of the iceberg relative to the large number of Mount Shasta paintings in museums and private collections around the country. The current exhibition is representative of the extensive art history of the Mount Shasta region."
The Lighter Side of Bay Area Figuration is a 2000 Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art exhibit which contains
56 humorous, whimsical and satirical works of art by San Francisco Bay artists such as Wayne Thiebaud,
Robert Arneson, Roy De Forest, Richard Diebenkorn, and Viola Frey. Comic
art in the Bay area began to flourish during the late 1950s in deliberate
defiance of New York's avant-garde. San Francisco's distance from the center
of commerce and criticism fostered a renegade mentality and a tendency toward
personal forms of expression. Bucking mainstream trends by combining humor
with lowbrow artistic media and techniques became a badge of honor for many
Bay Area artists. The hub of humorous figurative art
was the University of California in Davis, a sleepy and relatively remote
campus town 70 miles north of San Francisco. Although their aesthetics differed,
most of the Davis artists explored humorous narratives, whether in clay
sculpture or representational painting. The UC-Davis art department included
artists Arneson, De Forest, Thiebaud, Manuel Neri, and William Wiley. There,
Thiebaud painted his whimsical still lifes of ordinary objects from gumball
machines and yo-yos to pies and cakes, like the exhibition's painting Cakes
and Pies, 1994-95. Roy De Forest painted his canvases filled with wild-eyed,
pointy eared dogs, and printmaker William Wiley produced his quirky alter
ego, "Mr. Unatural." (right: Joan Brown, Portrait of
Bob for Bingo, 1960, oil paint oncanvas, 29 x 28 inches, Collection
of Joyce and Jay Cooper, AZ, Photo, Jay Cooper)
The Lighter Side of Bay Area Figuration is a 2000 exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Art, a compelling exhibition of approximately 70 works that deftly examines the historical, social, cultural, and aesthetic development of humorous Bay Area art. The exhibition -- the first to identify and examine this genre -- highlights the work of artists associated with the University of California at Davis, such as Robert Arneson, Roy De Forest, and Wayne Thiebaud, and with artists associated with the East Bay, such as Robert Colescott, Joan Brown, M. Louise Stanley, and James Albertson.
Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000 / Section 1: 1900 - 1920 / Section 2: 1920 - 1940 / Section 3: 1940 - 1960 / Section 4: 1960 - 1980 / Section 5: 1980 - 2000 is a 2000 multi-part exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The exhibition goes beyond a standard presentation of California art to offer a revisionist view of the state and its cultural legacy. It considers both "booster" images of California and other coexisting and at times competing images, reflecting the wide range of interests and experiences of the state's diverse constituencies. The exhibit approaches the past 100 years thematically, presenting works that engage in a meaningful way with the California image. As opposed to a survey exhibition, Made in California moves beyond the established canon of artists and art works to include lesser-known works by celebrated figures as well as a wider range of artists, more in keeping with the diversity of California's population. It is the shared conviction of the exhibition organizers that this approach, intended to initiate a broader dialogue on California art rather than establish a new canon.
Made in Monterey a 2009 exhibition at the Monterey Museum of Art, is a sweeping exhibition of the most beloved and important works from the permanent collection created by artists in Monterey or by those inspired by the region. Beginning with the pioneering artists who sojourned on the Central Coast in the late 19th century (including Jules Tavernier and Raymond Dabb Yelland), the exhibition features significant works of Monterey modernists such as Armin Hansen and Margaret Bruton as well as photography visionaries Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. Two renowned works by Armin Hansen, Nino and Men of the Sea, have been conserved and make their stunning debut in this new presentation.
Majestic California: Prominent Artists of the Early 1900's is a 2007 exhibition at The Irvine Museum. At one time, California was considered a distant Eden, isolated within its own beauty. From snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the desolate splendor of the Mojave Desert; from flower-covered hills to countless secluded valleys and meadows; from the dazzling beaches of the south to the rocky coves of the north, it was a world of its own. The enthralling beauty of California is the principal reason that, starting in the middle of the 19th century, artists began to take the long, hazardous journey to paint its unique splendor. By the early 1900's, California had its own group of prominent artists who proclaimed that beauty throughout the country.
Moods of California, a 2007 exhibition at The Irvine Museum, portrays California as experienced by three differing yet equally passionate artistic points of view. Percy Gray (1869-1952), a superb watercolorist who was fascinated by the soft, gentle light and haze of northern California; Paul Grimm (1887-1974), a landscape painter who in his later years moved to Palm Springs and became famous for paintings of the desert; and Emil Kosa, Jr. (1903-1968) who became one of Hollywood's best known scenic painters and set designers, while distinguishing himself as a bold painter of urban Los Angeles as well as light-filled views of the countryside.
The Not-So-Still Life: A Century of California Painting and Sculpture, held in 2003 at the San Jose Museum of Art, includes more than 100 works of art by such artists as Guy Rose, Franz Bischoff, Armin Hansen, Lorser Feitelson, Stanton McDonald-Wright, Hans Burkhardt, Helen Lundeberg, Paul Wonner, Wayne Thiebaud, Mildred Howard, Edward Ruscha, Ed Kienholz, George Herms, Richard Shaw, Peter Shelton, Alan Rath, and Robert Therrien. Divided into three sections: 1900-1930, 1920-1950 and 1950- 2000, the exhibition traces the intriguing evolution of still life in California over the last century. It is a revisionist examination of the genre. According to the curators, what was once the most conservative form of artistic practice has been transformed into one of the more radical forms of expression. Contemporary still life is no longer "still" -- it has not only moved off the table, but off the wall and into three dimensions. The exhibition examines a great variety of styles and media, from Impressionist paintings of apples and oranges to witty ceramic sculpture, funky assemblage art, and electronic media.
Old California is a 2000 exhibition at the California Art Club Gallery featuring original paintings and sculptures inspired by the romance and hardships that built a land named after the 16th century Spanish fable describing the treasure island, "California." The exhibition features prominent genre and figure artists of the California Art Club: Kalan Brunink, William George, Dan Goozeé, Joseph Mendez, Joel Phillips, Vic Riesau, and early CAC artist, Theodore Lukits (1897-1992).
Also see: Pacific Coast Painting: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington: 19th-21st Century
For further biographical information on selected artists cited above please see America's Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists.
This page was originally published in Resource Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for more information. rev. 2/1/11
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