USC Collects California

USC Fisher Gallery

Los Angeles, CA

213-740-4561

http://www.usc.edu/fishergallery

USC Collects California

What's made in California? Certainly a lot more than flicks and cheese - as seen in "USC Collects California," opening Aug. 30 and continuing through Nov. 4, 2000, at USC Fisher Gallery. Presented in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's "Made in California: Art, Image and Identity, 1900-2000," the exhibition features work from the gallery's permanent collection that was either inspired by or produced in the Golden State. (left: Gertrude Little (1887-1977), Model as an Indian Girl, c. 1924, 3 x 2 1/4 inches, watercolor on ivory)

Spanning a hundred years and reflecting a wide range of media and styles, the exhibition is articulated around three main groupings: "Representing California," "Making Art in California" and Maynard Dixon's "Jinks Room" murals. (left: Maynard Dixon, The Jinks Room (detail), 1912-1914, oil on canvas, Gift of the McCaslin Family)

The highly unusual Dixon murals, which feature processions of friars, elves and fairies, were commissioned in 1914 and originally installed in the children's playroom at the Anoakia Mansion in Arcadia. The murals have recently undergone 18 months of restoration work. This exhibition is their first public presentation.

"Representing California" ranges from the landscapes of Charles L. A. Smith, Aaron Edward Kilpatrick (1872-1953), Emil Jean Kosa, Jr. and Frances Hammell Gearhart (1869-1958), to Julius Shulman's photographs of urban Los Angeles and Reverend Ethan Acres' exuberant "Miracle at La Brea."

"Making Art in California" features the wide variety of artistic and cultural expression found in California: abstract work by Sam Francis, Blaine Mitchell, and Claire Falkenstein; portraiture by Sylvia Shap, Wallace Berman and Rena Small; miniatures by Gertrude Little and Martha Wheeler Baxter; digital media and computer-manipulated images, from the pioneering work of Michael Noll in the 1980s to the present; plus the work of two Chicano artists, Salomón Huerta and Gronk. (left: Sylvia Shap (1948 - ), Multiple Image Self Portrait, 1978, 47 1/8 x 36 1/4 inches, oil on rag board)

Read more about the USC Fisher Gallery in Resource Library Magazine

Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line to see enlargements.

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. 3/23/11

Search Resource Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.