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

September 6 - December 7, 2008

Every now and then a museum enjoys nothing more than showing off its collection and displaying the work of the most important artists.  By any reckoning, Pablo Picasso was one of a small handful of the most important artists of the last 100 years.  The Santa Barbara Museum of Art owns some spectacular drawings and prints by Picasso that represent his career, from beginning to end.  With this exhibition of 25 exceptional drawings and prints, we're taking the opportunity to present this rich material in its complete form.

Ten: Gifts of SBMA PhotoFutures

September 27, 2008 - December 21, 2008

SBMA celebrates the gifts made possible by PhotoFutures - now celebrating their tenth year.  Founded in 1998 by William Brian Little and Mrs. Kingman Douglass, the avid collectors have helped to build the permanent photography collection as well as support the photographic exhibitions.

Showcased in this exhibition are important areas of focus within the photography collection – the intersection of art and science, California masters, Western Pacific Rim artists, and the 19th century American West, among others.  PhotoFutures collectors have made many of these acquisitions possible.  With the generous, informed, and enthusiastic support of our committed members, the permanent photography collection is now richer than ever…and the legacy continues.

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

October 25 - December 28, 2008

This exhibition, organized by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 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 photographer, captured the colorful lives and traditions of Central and Eastern European Jews before the conflagration of the 1930s and 40s. 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.