The exhibition focuses on the impact and influence of the San Francisco Art Institute in the North Bay.
The Museum of Sonoma County’s newest exhibit, “UNRULY, North Bay Artists from the San Francisco Art Institute,” which opens Friday, had already been in the works for almost a year when Karen Wise was named the museum’s new executive director in January.
“I had nothing to do with it,” she said modestly, before introducing the show’s guest curator, Jude Mooney, an alumna of the San Francisco Art Institute.
Even so, it’s still a good place for her to start.
The new exhibit fits in with Wise’s goals, with work from both well-known and lesser-known artists from an institute famed for pushing boundaries and forging new frontiers.
“We need to make sure the museum is inviting,” Wise said. “One of the things about this exhibit is it has such a range of styles of art, and artists of so many different ages and backgrounds.”
The “UNRULY“ exhibition honors the legacy of the San Francisco Art Institute, the oldest and most influential fine arts school on the West Coast, which shut its doors in 2020 after 150 years in operation.
The exhibition focuses on the impact and influence of the San Francisco Art Institute in the North Bay. The show features more than 30 works by 18 regional artists, spanning multiple generations, who either studied or taught at the art Institute.
The show features art by Richard H. Alpert, Chester Arnold, David Best, Mark Grieve, the late Robert Hudson, Anton Kuehnhackl, Evri Kwong, Virginia Linder, Janis Crystal Lipzin, Phil McGaughy, naomi murakami, Sam Roloff, Alice Shaw, Simone Simon, Liz Steketee, Inez Storer, Hwei-Li Tsao and Heather Wilcoxon.
“The theme of the show is artists who are experimental, which was a big part of the art institute’s ethos,” Mooney explained. “It was a school where you could get away with anything — almost.”
Artists like Robert Hudson, David Best and Chester Arnold are famous alumni, but the show is not about them only.
“While they are important historically, I wanted a good balance,” Mooney said.
Work by others in the show will be new to many visitors, which was a goal for Mooney in curating the show.
One such artist is Richard Alpert of Petaluma. a 1973 graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, whose 2018 large-scale wood and wire structure, somewhat whimsically titled “Mechanism for Twisting Wire,” is bound to arrest visitors’ attention.
“A lot of his materials are things you’d find in a hardware store. Some of these artists have been working in the shadows,” Mooney said. “We want to bring them into the light.”
She also cited Virginia Linder of Inverness, who attended the San Francisco Art Institute in the 1960s and creates clothing with fabric, beads, paint and even found objects, as an example as an unusual lesser-known artist.
Phil McGaughy of San Anselmo, a 1992 graduate of the institute, also favors unusual materials, including mycelium, a network of thread-like fungal filaments that forms a root-like structure for fungi.
The exhibit features work by painter and collage artist Inez Storer, a 1955 alumna and later faculty member at the institute, who also lives in Inverness. Her work shows another side of school’s spirit.
“Her pieces address political and women’s issues,” Mooney said.
The institute was founded in 1871 by northern California artists and intellectuals who envisioned it as a center for art and culture in the American West. By the 20th century, it had become known as a school that provided its students with space to inquire, experiment and rebel.
“I myself am an alumna of the institute’s photo department,” Mooney said. “I graduated in 1993.”
Since the institute’s closure, its advocates organized an alumni exhibition at Chico’s Museum of Northern California Art in 2024, and they plan additional future exhibitions.
The “UNRULY” exhibit runs at the Museum of Sonoma County through June 8. Meanwhile, the new executive director is looking forward to her tenure here.
During her 25-year tenure at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, Wise served vice president of education and exhibitions. Since 2017, she has worked as an independent museum consultant.
She considers her background useful in guiding programs at the Sonoma County Museum’s two downtown Santa Rosa buildings, the history museum in the city’s old 1910 post office structure, and the more modern art museum next door.
“History museums are adding art and art musicians are adding history,” Wise said. “We already have both.”
Jeff Nathanson, the previous executive director of the Museum of Sonoma County served from September 2017 to June 2024. Kristin Madsen, former executive director of Creative Sonoma, served as interim director at the museum until Wise was hired last month.
You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5243. On X @danarts.
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