Curating the West
What event (gallery show, museum exhibit, etc.) in the next few months are you looking forward to, and why?
In early 2020 we are going to open a show that I am curating called Granville Redmond:
The Eloquent Palette, which, following its debut at the Crocker, will travel to the Laguna Art Museum. Representing both northern and southern parts of the state, Redmond’s paintings range in style from contemplative, tonalist works to dramatic and colorful impressionist scenes. Redmond is considered the premier painter of California poppies in their natural environment— people love these paintings in particular. This exhibition, the largest ever assembled and the first in more than 30 years, includes 75 paintings in oil and approximately 10 to 15 more in other media. It’s going to be a beautiful show.
What are you reading?
I never seem to have time to read for pleasure, so I am always trying to read what relates to an upcoming exhibition. Right now, I’m exploring an unpublished manuscript concerning frontier life in California written by a member of the Redmond family and writings on theosophy by Helena Blavatsky.
Interesting exhibit, gallery opening or work of art you’ve seen recently.
I’m typically most enamored by whatever great piece the Crocker has just acquired. At the moment, that is a grand cabinet and elaborate fireplace surround made between 1876 and 1878 for James Claire Flood’s mansion in Menlo Park, south of San Francisco. Made by the prestigious New York design and cabinetmaking firm of Auguste Pottier and William Stymus, the Flood furniture is elaborately carved and one of the era’s finest examples of American cabinetry. It is also enormous and thus has completely transformed our gallery of California paintings from the same period.
What are you researching at the moment?
I’m researching New Mexico’s Transcendental Painting Group for a traveling show that the Crocker is organizing. These artists all worked abstractly, seeking “to carry painting beyond the appearance of the physical world.” Though you don’t have to understand their philosophes to appreciate the beauty of their paintings, it is essential if you are going to write about them, meaning I’ve been reading about Kandinsky and spirituality in art, Carl Jung and theosophy. Members of the Group were particularly well-read, and it’s been a challenge to try to catch up to them. I have a lot of reading to do.
What is your dream exhibit to curate? Or see someone else curate?
I have years of exhibitions on my hope-to-do list. One that I will take on concerns California nocturnes, and it will be centered around the artist Charles Rollo Peters. In the realm of shows I would like to do but probably won’t have the opportunity, would be an international show dedicated to some new angle on Gustav Klimt and/or art nouveau.