All exhibitions on view to the public through April 28, 2017

Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964 is a powerful exhibition created by McLane High School's award-winning ArtVenture Academy students in 2014/2015, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. This thought-provoking and technically-masterful exhibition includes nine large-scale (4' x 8’) woodblock prints depicting historical events from the Civil War to the 1960s, an unfinished woodblock plate, a three-dimensional bus with African American historical figures and scenes symbolizing the Freedom Riders.

The project served as a vehicle by which students explored how young people can unite in the face of injustice to create transformative change in themselves and their communities. While embracing a diverse student population, the project gave voice specifically to the African American population through the lens of the Civil Rights movement.

Curator, Michele Ellis Pracy (Fresno Art Museum Executive Director & Chief Curator)

Loaned by Marc Patterson, Chairman of the Arts Department at McLane High School and art instructor for ArtVenture Academy.

Images: ArtVenture Academy Students, detail from Not in Mississippi panel and student at work on woodblock

As a means of showcasing new acquisitions to the Museum’s Permanent Collection, a recent gift of Mexican paintings and prints will be mounted in the Lobby and Concourse exhibition spaces between January 14 and April 30, 2017.

The MAW Collection consists of primarily Oaxaca-based artists, and was amassed by a group of Los Angeles collectors in the 1990s through 2003. The MAW group chose to donate a part of their collection to the Fresno Art Museum because we are recognized for embracing Latin American culture and using our collection to inspire educational programs for all ages.

Images (left to right): Charles Barth, Alfred con esposa (Alfred with Wife), 1995, print, 22.5" x 30"; Leovigildo Martinez, Sona de la luna (Sounds of the Moon), 2003, oil on canvas, 33.31" x 78.75"

Born in Changchun, China in 1948 and raised during the Maoist regime, Hung Liu studied mural painting at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing before immigrating to the United States in 1984 to attend the University of California, San Diego.

As a painter, Liu challenges the documentary authority of historical Chinese photographs by subjecting them to the more reflective process of painting. Her paintings utilize prostitutes, refugees, street performers, soldiers, laborers, and prisoners as subjects, reinventing the moments captured through a lens while simultaneously acknowledging the passing of time and breathing new life into faded memories. Much of the meaning of Liu’s painting comes from the way the washes and drips dissolve the documentary images, suggesting the passage of memory into history. Washing her subjects in veils of dripping linseed oil, she both “preserves and destroys the image.”

A two-time recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in painting, Liu’s works have been exhibited extensively and collected by many institutions including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. She is a Professor Emerita at Mills College, where she has taught since 1990. The Fresno Art Museum is very proud to present Hung Liu as the Council of 100 Distinguished Woman Artist of 2016.

Curator, Jeff Kelley (Critic, Curator, Studio Manager, Hung Liu Studio)

Exhibition sponsored by The Fresno Art Museum's Council of 100 and an anonymous donor

Images: Hung Liu, Dirty Pink, 2015, oil on canvas, 80" x 120" and Daughter of the Revolution, 1993, mixed media: oil on canvas, wood, and antique glass bottle, 78.5" x 62” x 5.5"

In the Art of the Word 2 exhibition, the Fresno Art Museum honors two Fresno literary icons and five visual artists who have illustrated their words over the past twenty years. Featured on the walls of the Contemporary Gallery are excerpted writings from children's books by United States Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera and Carnegie Medalist Gary Soto and some of the illustrations their words inspired.

The exhibiting artists illustrated the words of either Herrera or Soto, creating pictures to enhance the stories by the respective writer. They include non-fiction, fiction, and fantasy. The artists include Joe Cepeda (Big Bushy Mustache by Gary Soto), Raúl Colón (Portraits of Hispanic American Heroes by Juan Felipe Herrera), Elizabeth Gómez (The Upside Down Boy: El niño de Cabeza by Juan Felipe Herrera), Susan Guevara (Chato’s Kitchen, Chato and the Party Animals, and Chato Goes Cruisin’ by Gary Soto), and Ed Martinez (Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto).

Curator, Susan Yost Filgate (Fresno Art Museum Education Director)

Exhibition sponsored by the Bonner Family Foundation, Fresno City College, and Dr. John Scholefield and Kristene Petrucci Scholefield

Special thanks to J. Luis Orozco, Jr., Academia Cultural

Images: Raúl Colón, Joan Baez from the book Portraits of Hispanic American Heroes by Juan Felipe Herrera, watercolor and Prismacolor pencils on paper; Susan Guevera, Chato's Kitchen book cover, from Chato's Kitchen by Gary Soto, acrylic on black scratchboard

Inspired in part by the Museum’s signature fundraiser and fashion show, Trashique, Head to Toe: Wearable Art features artwork that uses the human body as part of the final piece. Featuring artists from across the United States and unique creations in a variety of mediums including metallurgy, millinery, painting, woodcarving, and weaving, this exhibition explores the complex relationship of wearable art with the fashion world, the art world, and the world of craft. Wearable art acts as a method of self-expression, innovation, and is a reflection of the millennia-old human tendency to create and wear beautiful things.

Curator, Kristina Hornback (Fresno Art Museum Curator)

Exhibition sponsored by Baker, Peterson, Franklin, CPA, LLP and the Daniel R. Martin Family Foundation

Images: Lexi Daly, Firefall, 2010, Cardboard coffee cup jackets, sterling silver, gunmetal chain, and hematite, Courtesy of the Artist, Photo credit: Kitfox Valenti; Jenne Giles, Rose Collar, 2012, Merino wool and silk, Courtesy of the Artist, Photo credit: Moja Ma'at

SUMMER 2016 EXHIBITIONS May 20 to August 28, 2016

Los Angeles art patron, collector, and arts advocate, Joan Agajanian Quinn, has been depicted in portraiture for over five decades by world-renowned artists at the forefront of their era, medium, and impact upon the contemporary art scene.

The exhibition RENDERING HOMAGE: Portraits of a Patron is a selection of artworks depicting her visage, created for her by artists she has championed over time. Approximately 50 two and three-dimensional pieces from Quinn’s collection of over 300 portraits tell the story of her passion for cutting edge American artists through their portrayals of her as their valkyrie.

Bay Area painter Mel Ramos describes Joan as “a living work of art.” This exhibition serves to herald her in this light, in addition to revealing her treasured artist friendships and her instinctual certainty of their relevance to 20th and 21st century contemporary art history. This is an exhibition paying homage to an art patron, sincerely appreciated.

The exhibited portraits are realized in all mediums, spanning four decades of Quinn’s relationships with artists she has believed in and supported. The exhibition includes works by Peter Alexander, Charles Arnoldi, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Laddie John Dill, Claire Falkenstein, Sophia Gasparian, Frank Gehry, Robert Graham, David Hockney, George Hurrell, E.F. Kitchen, Marie Lalanne, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ed Moses, Mel Ramos, Zandra Rhodes, Ed Ruscha, Alexis Smith, and Beatrice Wood, among others.

Nationally and internationally known artists portray their patron as a powerful art-world personage: an advocate who is true to herself, the artists, and the art she loves.

Curated by Michele Ellis Pracy and Kristina Hornback

An exhibition of selected folk art pieces from the Permanent Collection, curated by Kristina Hornback, Curator, Fresno Art Museum.

Images: Unknown artist, Lacquer work gourd, c.1960; works by Theodora Blanco, c.1950s, clay

This group exhibition of masterworks in fiber art is organized by Fresno Art Museum Executive Director and Chief Curator, Michele Ellis Pracy. Her intention is to reveal the creative versatility that fiber as a medium affords contemporary visual artists.

The twelve participating living artists were selected because they experiment, innovate, and push traditional fiber techniques to new limits. Seventeen of the artworks chosen by Ellis Pracy are oversized, commanding the vast wall spaces of the Fig Garden and Duncan Galleries. These she juxtaposes with six miniature embroideries by one artist, presented on their own narrow wall.

Curated to express bold new directions in fiber art, the techniques on view include varieties of tapestry, embroidery, weaving, crochet, quilting, and appliqué. Materials include wool, silk, paper, and cotton; artistic styles are represented with abstraction, realism, portraiture, pictorial, figurative, and fantasy.

The selected artists are primarily California-based; there are seven women and five men; all are established in the visual art world with gallery and museum exhibitions to their credit. Ellis Pracy has invited artists from the San Francisco Bay Area, Ventura County, Los Angeles, and the East Coast to participate.

The exhibiting artists are: Robin Clark, Lia Cook, Patti Handley, Michelle Kingdom, John Nava, Ramekon O’Arwisters, Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo, Michael Rohde, Audrey Sanders, Jeff Sanders, Joan Schulze, and Martha Smith.

Curated by Michele Ellis Pracy

The Fresno Art Museum thanks the following sponsors of Fiber Art Master Works: Anne and Donald Franson, Sloan & David Johnson, Kanwar Mahal, M.D., Nancy & John Mengshol, Jeffery Smith

Images: Michelle Kingdom, Some Imagined Future, 2016, embroidery, loaned by the artist; John Nava, R.E., 2005, 83" x 78", electronic jacquard, cottonwood viscose, loaned by the Museum of Ventura County

The Moradian Gallery presents a two-person exhibition of wood turned and fiber objects by Bob Stocksdale and Kay Sekimachi during the 2016 Summer Season. Borrowing from the heralded private holdings of Berkeley-based collector, Forrest L. Merrill, the FAM curators have selected inspired examples of each artist’s work.

The artists are each renowned in their respective mediums and are considered two of America’s foremost pioneers in contemporary craft. Pairing their work for exhibition goes beyond a curatorial choice, because they also married each other in 1972. Both Bob Stocksdale (1913 – 2003) and Kay Sekimachi (b. 1926) have careers spanning 50 years.

Bob Stocksdale is heralded as the father of American woodworking, creating lathe-turned bowls beginning in the 1950’s. Sekimachi is a master of complex weavings both on-loom and hand-constructed. The visual combination of imaginative fiber vessels with compelling grained wooden bowls is an exhibition instilling wonder and appreciation for what is truly beautiful.

Images: Bob Stocksdale, Bowl, 1983, Texas mesquite wood and Kay Sekimachi, Leaf Bowl, 2014, leaf skeletons froman unknown tree, Kozo paper, loaned by Forrest L. Merrill

Imaginary Worlds are places many of us visit through stories or images in books, movies, and dreams. They are realms where environments seem real, yet are not quite connected to our concrete world. They are make-believe, mysterious, and magical, and we can go there to escape and dream and imagine, whatever our age.

This exhibition was curated by FAM’s Education Director, Susan Yost Filgate in conjunction with the Kennedy Center's Any Given Child program with the Fresno County Office of Education. With this program, every third grader in Fresno Unified visits the Museum and learns about illustrators and illustrations. The exhibiting artists reveal imaginary worlds through their artwork, including engaging paintings by Leslie Batty and Leonard Filgate, colorful works on paper by Doug Hansen, Leslie Hawes and Bruno Pegoretti, and the amazing anamorphic sculpture of Karen Mortillaro.

Images: Bruno Pegoretti, The Mad Hatter's Tea Party, 2014, color pencil on paper; and Leonard Filgate, Tea Anyone? (from the Rip Squeak® Series) 2015, acrylic on canvas

Exhibition Support: Bonner Family Foundation

SUMMER 2017 EXHIBITIONS

Maurice Cohen is an internationally known artist who lives in both Fresno and Paris. He has won coveted awards in France for his Expressionist paintings. Dr. Cohen is also Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at California State University, Fresno, Professor of Radiology at the University of California, San Francisco, and a member of the Bioengineering Graduate Group at the University of California, Berkeley and at UCSF. The paintings exhibited here are exceptional examples of his Impressionist and Abstract styles. Cohen is acknowledged for his combinations of colors modeled with a knife, imagery that emerges from the compositional movement he achieves, and his command of painterly styles.

Exhibition Curators: Michele Ellis Pracy and Kristina Hornback

Image: Maurice Cohen, Paris Pont Neuf, 16" x 20", oil on canvas

Tell Me a Story is an exhibition organized to directly relate to the storybooks read by third graders throughout the Fresno Unified School District. It includes the original artwork of six illustrators selected for their unique and appealing visual interpretations of stories based on legends, folk tales, and social issues. The artists included are Michael Allen Austin (Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale), Pascal Biet (Wolf!), Colin Bootman (Finding Lincoln), Perky Edgerton (Bravo Tavo!), G. Brian Karas (Clever Jack Takes the Cake), and Boris Kulikov (The Castle on Hester Street). Combined, the represented stories illustrate many character building qualities: courage, determination, perseverance, resourcefulness, truth, the value of friendship, supporting tolerance and literacy, and overcoming impossible odds or misfortune with positivity.

Organized to coordinate with the Kennedy Center's Any Given Child Education Program

Exhibition Curator, Susan Yost-Filgate

Underwritten annually in part by the Bonner Family Foundation

Image: Michael Allen Austin, Martina and Perez, from the book, Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale, retold by Carmen Agra Deedy, 24" x 30", acrylic, colored pencil, and pastel on illustration board

Fresno-based artist Nancy Youdelman is acknowledged as an original member of the feminist art movement that began five decades ago at her alma mater, California State University, Fresno, under the tutelage of Judy Chicago. Fashioning a Feminist Vision is a retrospective exhibition of Youdelman’s artistic career and encompasses the 45 years between 1972 and 2017. Exhibition Curator Michele Ellis Pracy has selected 56 pieces, divided by decade, to illustrate the development of the artist’s oeuvre beginning with her time as an art student in the early 1970s to her current command of her feminist vision as an established artist today.

Exhibition Curator: Michele Ellis Pracy

Image: Nancy Youdelmanm, Zippers and Pins, 2009, Mixed media with encaustic, 54" x 37" x 4", Photo by Michael Karibian

In her newest body of work, Leslie Batty considers the subject of American feminine identity within the current political climate, addressing notions of “otherness” and conventional gender roles. Imagery of sewing and garments act as metaphor for identity, history, and culture in these paintings and collages, which aim to redress our assumptions of what it means to be “We the People.”

Exhibition Curator: Kristina Hornback

Image: Leslie Batty, Red Shoes, 2017, 24" x 24", Acrylic on canvas

A primary focus of the Fresno Art Museum is the maintenance and growth of our Permanent Collection. As a museum accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, we are held to the highest standards protecting this public trust. Recently accessioned selections from our collection will be shown in the Lobby and Concourse Galleries. These artworks are held for the benefit of the public, and we are delighted to present a portion of them this exhibition season.

Exhibition Curators: FAM Curatorial Staff

Image: Salvador Dali, The Flowering Inspiration,1978, Volume III, 235/350, Lithograph, 29 1/2" x 21 1/2"