Of Life and Loss: The Polish Photographs of Roman Vishniac and Jeffrey Gusky

October 25, 2008 - March 15, 2009 

This exhibition is organized by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and features 45 photographs by Roman Vishniac, made in Poland’s Jewish communities in the mid-1930s, and an equal number of images by Jeffery Gusky, taken six decades later in many of the same areas.

Roman Vishniac, a Russian-born Jew, photographed some of the Jewish communities of Central and Eastern Europe before the conflagration of the 1930s and 40.  Prompted by a commission of the American Joint Distribution Committee, Vishniac took over 16,000 photographs (2,000 of which survived the war) over a three-year period.  His poignant works feature vibrant communities filled with life: men, women and children in their homes and schools, at their trades and in their streets, markets, and temples.

Six decades later, Jeffrey Gusky, a fine art photographer and rural emergency physician from Texas, traveled to Poland to photograph the ruins of these long-destroyed communities.  Gusky's photographs were motivated by his personal feelings of horror, experienced five years before 9/11 while traveling in Poland, that mass destruction could happen again in modern times.

Examining each photographer separately, Vishniac and Gusky have very distinctive photographic styles. Due to the nature of his project and the ever-escalating semblance of anti-semitism, Vishniac’s photographs are less polished and more emotionally raw in an attempt to tell the stories of people’s individual lives.  By contrast, Gusky finds inspiration in the physical places which made up the world of now entirely absent communities of Jews.

While each photographer had an individual style and statement to make, it is both the relationship with and stark difference between the two that provides the greatest emotional poignancy.  The exhibition pairs many Vishniac and Gusky photographs, illuminating the individual lives lost, culture destroyed, and environments degraded by decades of neglect in Poland, as Gusky photographed the desecrated cemeteries, crumbling synagogues, and empty streets that served as the backdrop for Vishniac’s scenes of mid-century Jewish life.

There are also several points of convergence in the biographies of Vishniac and Gusky.  Like Vishniac, Gusky is of Russian Jewish descent, and both men were compelled to their photographic projects in part by personal reasons springing from their Jewish heritage.  The photographers also have professional ties to biological science which embody their work through illustration of the fragility of human life.

Ten: Gifts of SBMA PhotoFutures

September 27, 2008 - April 5, 2009

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art celebrates the gifts made possible by PhotoFutures, the avid collector’s group that has helped to build the Museum’s permanent photography collection as well as support photographic exhibitions.  Founded in 1998 by William Brian Little and Mrs. Kingman Douglass, PhotoFutures enters their tenth year.  In acknowledgement, SBMA showcases 58 acquisitions with the exhibition Ten: Gifts of SBMA PhotoFutures. 

While the 35 individuals that comprise the current PhotoFutures group hail from a variety of professions and backgrounds, an appreciation and passion for photography remain consistent.  The Ten exhibition highlights this passion by focusing on those areas of strength in the Museum’s photography collection, including California photographers, Western Pacific Rim artists, the intersection of art and science, and contemporary works.  

California Photographers

With the Museum, and many PhotoFutures members based in Southern California, building a collection that incorporates the photography of artists working in California has been of special interest.  This collecting category incorporates both artists born in the state and those who focus on California subjects in their work.  For example, the Depression-era farm laborer photographs of Dorothea Lange, who was born in New York but relocated to San Francisco early in her career, have become iconic images of mid twentieth-century rural California.

The documentary, photojournalistic style of Dorothea Lange, Horace Bristol, and other early California photographers continues to influence artists practicing in the state, such as Robbert Flick whose diptych underscores the limits of two-dimensional art when rendering the experience of time and place.  Also featured in the exhibition are photographers David Maisel (his series Lake Project), Karen Halverson, and John Humble.

Photographers of the Western Rim

In response to the burgeoning cultural and economic influence of many East Asian nations, the Museum has identified Western Pacific Rim photography as an important area of development for the collection.

In particular, recent additions to the collection from China, Japan, and Korea - all nations in the midst of significant technological and economic growth - express the complex nature of cultures in flux.  Western Pacific Rim artists also experiment with using the medium of photography as a means to reflect upon the rapid transition from traditional to modern ways of life. 

Art and Science

Scientific photography is a growing sub-section of the SBMA collection.  Since its inception, photography has been a useful tool in scientific research by expanding the powers of human observation.  Many scientific photographs transcend the context of their production, blurring the lines between art and science. Early scientific photographers such as Dr. Dain L. Tasker and Wilson A. Bentley created works of both technological and aesthetic excellence.

Contemporary photographers continue to explore the boundaries between scientific and artistic observation of natural phenomena by designing innovative photographic techniques.  Walter Chappell uses electromagnetic energy to create bioluminescence that activates the silver, resulting in an image that reveals the intricate structures of his subjects.  Other artists have turned to digital and computer-generated imagery to explore the natural world from a technological point of view, such as Joan Fontcuberta whose Googlegram 2 is constructed of 10,000 images that he found on the popular search engine using search terms such as ‘sky,’ ‘inferno,’ and ‘purgatory’.

Contemporary Photographers

Contemporary photographers often take inspiration from the work of their predecessors in order to stretch the technological and conceptual boundaries of the medium.  Other contemporary photographers have turned to digital technology to fashion imagined realities. 

This exhibition has been made possible through the generosity of Jane and Ken Anderson and PhotoFutures.

For more information on PhotoFutures, contact Karen Sinsheimer, SBMA’s Curator of Photography at 805.884.6411.

Picasso on Paper: Drawings and Prints from the Permanent Collection (1899-1967)

September 6, 2008 - February 22, 2009 

By any reckoning, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) is one of the most important figures and influential artists in the last 100 years.  A handsome selection of 25 works by this influential artist graces the walls of Von Romberg and Emmons galleries at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in the exhibition Picasso on Paper: Drawings and Prints from the Permanent Collection (1899-1967).  While Picasso may be a household name, what may be less obvious is that SBMA owns an impressive collection of works by the artist that represent the entirety of his career.  Picasso on Paper includes drawings and prints that span 68 years of Picasso’s activity, ranging in media and subjects: portraits, classical legends, fantasies, some still-life and even the reworking of old master images.

The very young Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age.  From the age of seven, he received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting.   Picasso arrived in Paris, an unknown 23 year-old, in April 1904.  He soon settled into his famous studio, the Bateau-Lavoir, and began to associate with members of the international avant-garde in the city, notably painters, the art dealer Ambroise Vollard, and Gertrude Stein and her circle.

His subject was humanity and its condition; his work was usually quite personal, and his skills in drawing were scarcely equaled in the history of Western art.  He said that his images were his novels, but drawn rather than written.  Picasso was indefatigable, reworking images again and again, not because they disappointed him, but because he was rarely satisfied that his agile mind had exhausted their possibilities.  He was ceaselessly inventive; not only in his numerous paintings – often one or more a day, but also in hundreds of prints and drawings and at least 314 posters.

This exhibition has been guest curated by Professor Alfred Moir, SBMA’s Consulting Curator of European Drawings.

Made in Hollywood: Photographs from the John Kobal Foundation

July 12 – October 5, 2008

Garbo, Dietrich, Swanson, Harlow, Gable, Hepburn, Bogart…these are some of the names synonymous in people’s minds when it comes to remembering the golden age of Hollywood.  What about the names of George Hurrell, Clarence Bull, Ruth Harriet Louise, Robert Coburn, or Ernest Bachrach?  They are perhaps less recognizable, but they fundamentally filled some of the most important roles in Hollywood history – they were the photographers of the stars, and they launched many a successful career, keeping the best in the limelight and Hollywood as a place where dreams were realized in the consumer’s mind.

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art proudly presents the exhibition Made in Hollywood: Photographs from the John Kobal Foundation, showcasing more than 90 original vintage prints by the most important photographers working in Hollywood from 1920 - 1960.  The exhibition is organized by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and makes its worldwide debut in Santa Barbara before being presented in venues in the United States and Europe.  It is being co-curated by Karen Sinsheimer, SBMA Curator of Photography, and Robert Dance, film historian and co-author of Garbo’s Garbos.

The collection of works in the exhibition are chosen from The John Kobal Foundation, a fine art archive of more than 4,500 original vintage photographs featuring the major studios and stars from the late teens until about 1960. 

The Foundation is the legacy of John Kobal (1940-1991) who was among the pioneering generation of Hollywood historians and among the first to examine seriously the photographs taken to promote the stars, the films, and Hollywood as place.  Among the collections are a vast trove of original, 8 x10” negatives and extensive documents, including oral histories relating to the life and career of the photographers who recorded this important aspect of American cultural life.

The resulting collection provides a platform for the Made in Hollywood exhibition which includes prints of some of the greatest stars during the golden age of the film industry, along with behind-the-scenes looks of sets.  The majority of the works are 11x14” original, vintage prints, with approximately 8 printed specifically for the exhibition from the original negatives.

Made in Hollywood is the third in a series of exhibitions organized by and on view at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art that highlights the golden age of film.  It is complement to the two previous exhibitions, Ruth Harriet Louise and Hollywood Glamour Photography in 2002 which focused on the Hollywood photographer, and Garbo’s Garbos in 2005 which celebrated the star.  Made in Hollywood is accompanied by a catalogue published by Steidl which contains more than 200 images drawn from the Kobal archive. 

This exhibition is made possible through the generosity of SBMA PhotoFutures, Susan and John Sweetland, and an anonymous donor.

It's All About Me: California Artists' Self-Portraits

May 3 - August 17, 2008

This exhibition of fourteen paintings and photographs celebrates both the richness of California art over the last century and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s permanent collection.  Being one of the oldest art museums in California with a commitment to contemporary art, the collection of self-portraits by California artists has grown significantly over the years.

Artists have explored a wide range of approaches and assumed differing social stances. There is no one defining style or typical self image that defines this exhibition. Two works by Clarence Hinkle, a Santa Barbara artist, bracket the exhibition.  In his Self-Portrait with Bowler Hat, he plays the handsome, young art student, with a dash of bohemianism.  While in his last self—portrait, Today and Yesterday, which was painted when he was eighty, meditates on this youthful self-image and records his own decrepitude.

Helen Lundeberg, one of the first California surrealists used her own self-image as a memory device, recalling her youthful self, but distancing herself from it by reproducing it as a portrait within a portrait.  Robert Arneson’s drawing is a world away in feeling:  the artist as a rude, boorish breaker of social conventions.  Henry Miller, better known as an author, adopts the vigorous style of the French artist Georges Rouault to convey his sense of himself as a rebel.

Alma Lavenson, whose identity was shaped by her passion for photography, offers a close up of her hands protectively holding her camera as she focuses her lens.  In contrast, Mary Latour reclines in a euphoric reverie as she lights a long-stemmed pipe, an image that defied the rules of ladies’ behavior and women’s proper place.    

A Tibet Expedition 1938: Selected Gifts from Two Explorers

April 12 - August 17, 2008

In June 1938, two young Americans, Wilbur L. Cummings, Jr. (1914 - 1943), and F. Bailey Vanderhoef, Jr. set off on an expedition into Tibet.  Leaving from the small Indian hill station of Kalimpong, they crossed the Himalayas – their principal goal, to document the religious art and the famous “lama dances” in the city of Gyantse in western Tibet.  The paintings, sculpture, and ritual objects brought back from their Tibet trip were donated to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in 1954 and 1991 by the Cummings family and Bailey Vanderhoef, now forming the core of the Museum’s Tibetan art collection.

This exhibition commemorates the adventurers and their gifts in the context of their journey.  While most of the ritual objects and sculp­ture are on display in the Asian galleries on the Museum’s Upper Level, this exhibition highlights select paintings (thangkas) and a few objects accompanied by photographs and journal entries.   Thangkas are sacred pictures that were typically painted by anonymous artists who traveled all over Tibet, receiving commissions from monasteries as well as private patrons.  The status and wealth of the patrons determined the quality of the thangkas through the choice of pigments, amount of gold used in embellishment, and the richness of the silk brocades on which the paintings were mounted. 

The art of Tibet, and associated thangkas, are almost entirely based on the spirituality of Buddhism.  Paintings and sculpture of various Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and numerous manifestations of gods and goddesses were created to serve multiple purposes.  These images, some peaceful-looking and some with wrathful expressions, range in function from objects of devotion to symbols and personifications of Buddhist teachings.  Many are used as visual aids in meditation and rituals to help practitioners advance towards the ultimate goal of release from rebirth, nirvana. 

The momentous adventure that spurred the acquisition of these spiritual objects commenced when Cummings and Vanderhoef were students at Harvard in 1938, both 24 years and both with a fascination of and concentration on Asian Studies.  An opportunity arose the students to accept freelance photography work in Tibet, so Vanderhoef and Cummings took advantage – both to complete the photography project, but to also do what interested them the most – to collect art.

The 3-month trip included a 6-week wait in Kalimpong, then British India, to gain permits to enter Tibet, then a rush to arrive in Gyantse in time for the Sagadawa festival and the viewing of the Great Thangka unveiling, which lasted a mere 2 hours every year.  Their photographs of this festival and the dramatic unveiling of the painting appeared a year later in the June 12, 1939 edition of Life magazine, and had the elite distinction of being some of the first color images of Tibet to appear in the American popular press. 

While their spirit of adventure fueled the journey, it was their love and interest in art that ignited the flame.  They desired to purchase those items that were distinctively Tibetan, such as old thangkas, books with finely carved wooden covers, bronze sculptures, or silver, but found these items were not easily available, as they were typically part of religious settings and many monasteries and wealthy families were not amenable to parting with them.

However, a bit of resourcefulness – and cash – led them to discover that, as quoted by Vanderhoef, “…the older the things were the less expensive they were and that of course suited us perfectly.”

F. Bailey Vanderhoef, Jr.’s contributions to SBMA did not end with the works bestowed to the Museum from this adventure.  As Life Honorary Trustee, major donor, and guiding force behind the Asian Collection, he has played an integral role in the life of the organization since the early 1950s.  Not only has he served on the Exhibition and Acquisitions Committee since joining the Board of Trustees in 1954, he curated the exhibitions Tibetan Art in 1955 and Oriental Lacquer in 1976, and wrote the corresponding catalogues.  On the occasion of the Museum’s 50^th anniversary in 1991, he made a gift of 108 Asian objects from his outstanding personal collection, representing the single largest donation of Asian art in the Museum’s history.  Because of Vanderhoef’s significant contributions of time, knowledge, and generous contributions, SBMA honored him as the recipient of the Wright S. Ludington Award in 1998. 

This exhibition coincides with the online publication of A Glimpse of Another World: A Journey Through Western Tibet (1938) by F. Bailey Vanderhoef, Jr.  located at the link www.religion.ucsb.edu/tibetjourney1938/. 

The exhibition and the publication were assisted by the Museum’s Oral History Project and students from the Department of Religious Studies at UCSB under the direction of Professor José Ignacio Cabezón.

Over Rainbows and Down Rabbit Holes: The Art of Children's Books

March 15 - June 15, 2008

This magical presentation features approximately 70 works of art created specifically for children’s books.  These original works, seen as independent creations while connecting with their literary context, inspire the imagination and celebrate the creativity of making picture books for readers of all ages.  The exhibition is drawn from the outstanding collection of picture book art assembled by Zora and Les Charles and is organized by SBMA in collaboration with The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, MA, the first full-scale museum in this country devoted to national and international picture book art. 

Classics in this exhibition include The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne and illustrated by Ernest Shepard, and The Travels of Babar by Jean de Brunhoff.  Works by Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, and Kay Nielsen represent the earlier golden age of illustration, while the majority of examples focus on the flowering of the genre by artists and authors working in the post-World War II period.  Trina Schart Hyman (Little Red Riding Hood), Chris Van Allsburg (Jumanji), and husband and wife team Leo and Diane Dillon (Earth Mother) are among the contemporary illustrators represented.

The breadth of works featured in the exhibition stems from Santa Barbara resident and collector, Zora Charles’s favorite stories.  So, instead of limiting the presentation to a particular subject matter, artist, or illustrative or printing technique, the assemblage offers a more human perspective – one that represents a walk through time, from childhood memories to once-again-realized, adult imagination.  “I’ve always loved to read,” writes Charles in an excerpt from her essay.  “I would always pore over the illustrations as I was reading.  Did the pictures coincide with my imagination as I read?  Or even better, did the illustrations tell me more about the story than the words did?  Did they create a world for the story to live in?  That’s where the magic begins.  Any competent artist can paint a picture to demonstrate what the words say.  But the great illustrators use the words as a key to unlock a magical, visual universe.”

Her passion for collecting began when she started attending antiquarian book fairs with her husband, Les Charles, an eager collector of rare books, more than 20 years ago.  He encouraged Zora to start her own collection of children’s books, given her background as an elementary school teacher.  She started with the Caldecott Medal winners, such as Robert Lawson and Gerald McDermott – but quickly found inspiration from Peter Glassman and James Carey of Books of Wonder, one of the largest and oldest sources of children’s publications.  As she was introduced to many of the artists of the works she was collecting, she realized that a children’s book illustration is a true art form that can stand on its own, separate from the books that inspire it.  The next thing she knew, she had the “collecting disease.”

The result of this artful ailment is certainly SBMA’s gain.  The resulting exhibition is not only a scholarly presentation of some of the finest examples of original illustrative art, but also a source of inspiration and a connection between visual and verbal literacy.  The Museum’s Education Department is excited by the opportunity to further their ongoing quest to promote visual literacy to children of all ages.  The idea that pictures can be “read” is the golden thread that runs through the countless number of education programs that the Museum offers on an ongoing basis.  An upcoming project that specifically reflects this goal is the reinstallation in March 2008 of the Robert and Marlene Veloz Children’s Gallery, which will be loosely themed around the material presented in the Over Rainbows and Down Rabbit Holes exhibition.

This exhibition has been made possible in part through generous gifts from Susan and John Sweetland, Audrey Hillman Fisher Foundation, Arthur and Carolyn Merovick (Farish Fund), William E. Weiss Foundation, and smART Families.

Oblivion: David Maisel

January 26 - April 27, 2008

Aerial photography occupies a special place among the many segments of photography.  Not only because of a history dating back to the earliest periods of photographic discovery, but also for the images aerial photographers have captured – images that would have been unattainable from any other viewpoint.  Images that have had a profound impact both on how we view ourselves and how we view the world around us.

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art illustrates such an intense view of the world, or at least that which is defined by the urban area of Los Angeles, in this exhibition.  These large scale images by San Francisco-based photographer David Maisel are printed as negatives rather than positives, providing views of a city that is nearly the size of Ireland with more than 15 million inhabitants, as startlingly quiet, intimate, and eerily beautiful.  In essence, these photographs provide x-rays of a city’s anatomy – topographies of frenzy and alienation – making them all the more frightening as claustrophobic expanses.

From earliest times humankind has held a fascination with the view from above, especially those of urban landscapes.  Not long after the discovery of photography, pioneers in the field began to turn their attention to the aerial view.  The first to successfully accomplish this feat was Gaspar Felix Tournachon or "Nadar" in 1858 when he photographed the houses of the French village of Petit-Becetre from a balloon tethered at a height of 80 meters. That first image has unfortunately been lost, but Nadar went on with his experiments becoming the first to photograph Paris from a balloon in 1868.  In 1860, not long after Nadar's first attempts, James Wallace Black was successful in photographing Boston from a balloon. This is the oldest aerial photograph know to still exist.

Maisel’s images are truly breathtaking and thought-provoking, following in the tradition of those photographic pioneers who provide us a unique look at the world in which we exist.

Meditations in Silver: Photographic Studies by Paul Caponigro

January 26 - April 6, 2008

This exhibition concentrates on the still life, with the photographer, Paul Caponigro, crafting his pictures from artifacts collected over 40 years.  These 25 prints focus on the very small and intimate beauty of nature.  His images are not the spectacular, grand scale views that immediately claim attention, but rather quiet contemplations that reveal themselves over time. 

In the 1960s, following a move to New York City, Paul Caponigro focused his attention on still lifes, or the depictions of inanimate subject matter or groupings of commonplace objects.  His iconic image Apple, New York City, 1964, in the words of David Stroud, “sums up Caponigro’s exploration of still life at that time as it looks forward to his later work.”  Those words were truly prophetic.  In 1999, thirty-five years later and after a hiatus of six years from all things photographic, Caponigro stated simply, “Objects collected from nature started to wink at me.”

A lifelong gatherer of fragments and traces - humble seeds and shells, rocks and stones, leaves, fruits, and flowers–he listens in silence and simply lets the objects speak.  These objects fill Caponigro’s home, companions in his quotidian reality along with his grand piano.

In these exquisite images there is evidence of the artist’s refined Italian hand.  They are black and white prints of surpassing elegance, created in the darkroom by the master himself.  Caponigro belongs to the elite generation of fine art photographers who thrive in and inhabit the dark to capture the light radiating from the finished works.