Current Exhibits

VISION: New works from the SAMOCA Collection, January 5 - December 12, 2012. The SAMOCA permanent collection boasts a wide range of works, including new artists Simone Best, Sheldon Crane, and Elizabeth Moore.



Current Exhibit: Siobhan Westhoff 

SAMOCA presents a collection of paintings by Siobhan Westhoff, described by Art World as "the pre-eminent American post-painterly abstractionist, rejecting Rothko's mantle and running to the edges of color field theory." This exhibit includes work shown at the Gauggossian (NYC), MoMA, and Greene & Stromberg, and several paintings making their debut at SAMOCA. 

Westhoffs work defies spatial interpretation, but implicitly refers to the natural world. (See Grain and Skies, the two best known naturalistic pieces.) Her early stain paintings encouraged comparisons to Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis, but Westhoff soon abandoned this technique for the more intentional brush-heavy, impasto style that she is known for today. SAMOCA is proud to be the first West Coast exhibitor of her work.




Upcoming Exhibit: Paul Shellmont: Bird Watching

Paul Shellmont's first exhibit in the United States, showcases some of the finest paintings and drawings from his delicate and whimsical body of work. Shellmont's work as an illustrator has been featured in magazines such as New Yorker and The Atlantic and he is well known for his fanciful hand-drawn animations, including the Oscar-winning short, A Balloon for Marcel.

This exhibit presents the changing nature of his art in the last ten years, especially his growing pre-occupation with the environmental effects of globalization and industrialization in the third world. Shellmont says, " Bird Watching, for me, represents the kind of cycle of mute observance that we're stuck in today. Even if we pay strict attention to the natural world, glimpses are fleeting. And fading." Bird Watching combines Shellmont's distinctive child-like comic style with a more somber, intentionally provoking palette, which Art 9-5-0 called his "strongest statement to date."




Permanent Collections

The SAMOCA permanent collection boasts a wide range of works, including new artists Simone Best, Sheldon Crane, and Elizabeth Moore.

Paintings
SAMOCA's collection of paintings includes work from 1950 to the present, and is ever expanding. The collection is especially renowned for its emphasis on California art and artists, including Sam Francis, Nathan Oliveira, and Wayne Thiebaud.

Photography
The Photography Gallery exhibits over 2,000 rotating examples from the permanent collection, which spans from the very beginnings of the medium to the present day. Collection highlights include silver gelatin prints by Ansel Adams, landscapes by John Pfal, and portraits by Robert Mapplethorpe.

Sculpture
Comprising American sculpture from the mid-19th through the late 20th centuries, SAMOCA's collection is famed for its almost complete series of Frederic Remington's work, as well as the extensive outdoor sculpture gardens containing work from modernist Americans such as Richard Serra and Isamu Noguchi.


