Summer 2015 Exhibitions
May 16, 2015 to August 30, 2015
Curators: David Keaton and Linda Cano, FAM Executive Director
The Duncan and Hallowell Galleries are devoted to Bay Area printmaker Karl Albert Kasten (1916-2010). Local guest curators Linda Cano and David Keaton have made a tour de force selection from this artist's six decades of printmaking illustrating his experimental and groundbreaking techniques in this medium. The pieces they selected range from early representational woodblock prints of the 1930s through a multitude of styles and processes he utilized throughout his career, including etching, aquatint, lithography, and collography. The exhibition GRAPHIC KNOWLEDGE: Six Decades of Printmaking offers viewers a rich opportunity to survey one of the pivotal voices in the evolution and advancement of modern graphic arts.
Karl Albert Kasten (1916-2010) pioneered materials, techniques and theory as artist, teacher and inventor. Celebrated as “The Dean of California Printmaking,” Kasten began his teaching career at the California School of Fine Arts in 1941, and established the first printmaking departments in California at San Francisco State University and the University of California Berkeley in 1950, where he taught until 1983. Ranging from early representational woodblock prints of the 1930s through a multitude of styles and processes including etching, aquatint, lithography and collography, this exhibition offers a rich opportunity to survey one of the pivotal voices in the evolution and advancement of modern graphic arts.
Exhibition Support: CCIS Insurance Services, Joe Sciarrone, and Anonymous
May 16, 2015 to August 30, 2015
Curator: Mark Rodriguez
In the Fig Garden Gallery, local guest curator Mark Rodriguez has selected intimate paintings by Rodney Harder in an exhibition entitled RODNEY HARDER: world. The artist received his MA from California State University, Fresno in 1975 and remains connected to the community although he now resides in New York City. His intimate, small, abstract paintings are expressions about humanity, heritage, and paying homage to the human spirit. Harder created these works using recycled paints, boards, and canvas, plus gold leaf at times. The painting surfaces and textures acknowledge multiple cultures; their compositions suggest abstracted language. As a group of paintings, world delicately describes the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity for the viewer's personal enrichment.
Currently a resident of New York City, Harder received a master’s of art from California State University, Fresno in 1974 and was selected for a Milton Avery Family Grant in Painting and a summer study at Oxford University, St. Johns College. He has exhibited internationally, most recently in Italy, Brussels, and Glasgow, Scotland.
Over the years, Harder has transitioned from landscapes and abstractions in watercolor and oil to process art, performance art, installation art, folded paper construction, and marble and cardboard constructions.
Exhibition Support: Drs. Kelli Beingesser and Gail Newel, Daisy Addicott, Herman and Eloise Janzen, Gary Steinert and Fred Smith
May 16, 2015 to August 30, 2015
Black and white land and seascape photographs by Bob Kolbrener are featured throughout the Lobby and Concourse exhibiting spaces. The exhibition entitled Bob Kolbrener: In Real Time, Celebrating 50 Years in Photography was originally assembled by the Monterey Museum of Art. In essence, Mr. Kolbrener is an adventurer and explorer. He uses his camera to capture that exceptional moment or extraordinary vista he discovers during his private treks on land and at the seashore. This exhibition celebrates the five decades of his expansive landscape photography and his use of the time-honored methods of film and silver-gelatin darkroom printing. The prints themselves are superlative compositions, and the chiaroscuro of light and dark inherent to the images is exquisite. The body of work cements Kolbrener as a premier artist who continues to champion the ideals of traditional black and white photography.
May 16, 2015 to August 30, 2015
In partnership with the Friends of the Politi Branch Library, an affiliate of the Fresno County Public Library, the Museum presents the original paintings, artist studies, and sketches from Moy Moy, a classic children’s book written and illustrated by Leo Politi (b.1908 Fresno, d. 1996 Los Angeles). First published in 1960, Moy Moy tells the story of four young siblings preparing for a Chinese New Year celebration in the close-knit immigrant community in Los Angeles' Chinatown. Politi’s stories, with their colorful California settings and multi-cultural sensitivity, unique for their time are considered to be classic examples of the twentieth–century children's picture book. This exhibition celebrates the re-release of Moy Moy in an anthology of children’s stories, A Treasury of Wintertime Tales (Taschen Press, published November 2014).
This exhibition is a main focus for school tours conducted in partnership with the Fresno County Office of Education, the Fresno Unified School District, and the Kennedy Center Any Given Child initiative.
Images: Illustrations from the book, Moy Moy by Leo Politi
Exhibition Support: Bonner Family Foundation, Friends of the Politi Branch Library, Fresno County Federal Credit Union, Christy V. Hicks, Deborah and Greg Lapp, Dr. John Scholefield and Kristene Petrucci Scholefield
May 16, 2015 to August 30, 2015
The Abstract Spirit: Etchings from the Permanent Collection showcases works on paper by Roberto Matta. Chilean-born Matta was a prominent member of the Surrealist movement in New York during the 1940s. The pieces selected for this exhibition are wrought with spiritual and mystical significance. The artist employed a dramatic use of color and organic forms to breathe life onto paper. Matta’s work has a primitive essence, with undulating shapes and sharp lines creating cosmic landscapes that boldly confront the viewer, presenting an interpretation of the mythological elements that unify us as a people.
Images: Roberto Matta, Both works are Untitled and from the series: Hom'mere III (L'Ergonaute), 1977, etching with aquatint, 27/100, a gift to FAM from Dr. and Mrs. J.L. Sheehy in memory of Mrs. Sheehy's mother
May 16, 2015 to August 30, 2015
Fourteen works by internationally renowned Japanese sculptor, painter, and printmaker, Seiji Kunishima are featured in the Moradian Gallery. Museum Curator Kristina Hornback made her selections from the Estate of Edward Den Lau's gift to FAM's Permanent Collection. These pieces embody Kunishima's style of combining the traditional and the modern while examining elements of the natural world, as well as spatial qualities of weight, mass, and balance.