Celebrating Modern Art : The Anderson Collection > California Art

on view: October 7, 2000 - January 28, 2000 The Anderson holdings of California art encompass a diversity of styles and media, and include artists from both Northern and Southern California. The Collection focuses on two approaches to art-making prevalent in California since the 1950s: the artistic exploration of the tenuous balance between abstraction and figuration, and experimentation with new and nontraditional materials. The galleries follow the historical development of these two tendencies over the last fifty years, the same time span covered in the New York School section.

Sam Francis  Red in Red  1955  Oil on canvas  78 3/8 x 78 3/8 in.  Collection of Harry W. and  Mary Margaret  Anderson

		By the mid-1950s, Abstract Expressionism had become the dominant style of the American modern art scene. In California, painters David Park and Richard Diebenkorn were among the first avant-garde artists to break away from "pure" Abstract Expressionism, by reintroducing representational elements to paintings that otherwise remained highly abstract. This hybrid style of painting is exemplified by Richard Diebenkorn's View from the Porch (1959), which simultaneously appears to be both a landscape and a study in color, form, and light. Nathan Oliveira worked in the tradition Diebenkorn and Park established, maintaining a delicate combination of representation and abstraction in his art. This same tendency persists in the postminimal sculpture of Los Angeles artist Robert Therrien, as well as in the canvases of Bay Area painter Christopher Brown. California artists' experimentation with new materials demonstrates a spirit of invention common to art made on the West Coast and also relates to the use of industrial materials and processes by Minimalist sculptors. Robert Irwin, Sam Richardson, and John McCracken have all explored the artistic potential of plastics, while artists such as Manuel Neri and Robert Arneson have created figurative sculpture out of materials commonly associated with craftwork: namely, plaster and clay. Tim Hawkinson's "altered objects" from the 1980s combine an enthusiasm for new materials with a predilection for found objects, yet another California art-making tradition.
	Richard Diebenkorn  Ocean Park #60  1973  Oil on canvas   93 x 81 1/4 in.  Collection of Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson

	For more features or information on Celebrating Modern Art: The Anderson Collection, please visit the following sources: Interactive Web feature: Art as Experiment, Art as Experience

Celebrating Modern Art: The Anderson Collection is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition is supported by the Board of Trustees of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Modern Art Council, a Museum auxiliary. Additional generous support is provided by Doris and Donald Fisher, Helen and Charles Schwab, Evelyn D. Haas, Phyllis Wattis, Mimi and Peter Haas, Patricia and William Wilson III, and Elaine McKeon. Media Sponsors: KRON-TV4, BayTV, and SF Gate Copyright © 1996-2008 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art