SEPT | OCT | NOV | DEC 2021 CROCKER ART MUSEUM MEMBERS MAGAZINE Explore creative learning with the Crocker! Dive deep into art techniques during in-person studio classes or enjoy the convenience and comfort of learning from home with virtual classes and programs. Featured Upcoming Classes Artist You Should Know: Jaune Quick- Encaustic Painting for Beginners to-See Smith [in-person] Saturday, October 9, [virtual] Sunday, September 19, 1– 3:30 PM 10:30 AM – 4 PM Beginning Drawing and Composition Floral Paintings from Braque to Chagall [virtual] September 28, 30, October 5, 12, [in-person] Mondays and Wednesdays, 14, 10 – 11:30 AM November 8 – 17, 1 – 3:30 PM [in-person] Thursday, October 7, Watercolor Holiday Cards 10 – 11:30 AM [virtual] Saturday, December 4, 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM Visit crockerart.org/calendar for a complete schedule of upcoming learning experiences. / TABLE OF CONTENTS / 9 18 43 5 20 Members DIRECTOR’S LETTER TOWNS, TRAINS, AND TERRAIN & Patrons This exhibition examines the history of California from maps and depictions of 30 On View Gold Rush towns to the influx of train travel and urban scenes of San Francisco. MEMBER BENEFITS 6 24 32 COLLECTION NEWS Clark Hobart / Toshio Aoki / Carlos STEPHEN DE STAEBLER MUSEUM SUPPORT Almaraz This exhibition presents clay and bronze masks dating from the 1960s to the 1990s 37 12 and a selection of monumental bronzes completed between the 1990s and 2010. NEW & OUTGOING MONET TO MATISSE CO-TRUSTEES Featuring a panorama of French art from Inside Look the Realists through the Impressionists 40 and Post-Impressionists to the early 20th century. 27 VISITOR VOICES 18 ART INTERACTIVE LIVE! 41 BACK TO SCHOOL HANDS AND EARTH #PEOPLEOFCROCKER GALLERY BYTES Featuring works by master Japanese ceramic artists of the last 80 years from 43 the largest collection of contemporary ceramics outside of Japan. MUSEUM STORE crockerart.org SEPT | OCT | NOV | DEC 2021 ARTLETTER 3 Vol. 31, Issue 3 ArtLetter is published by the Crocker Art Museum Association for its members. © 2021 Crocker Art Museum. All rights reserved. ARTLETTER STAFF Editor-in-Chief AJ Costello Jennifer Sengo Elizabeth Baidoo Rachel Gotlieb, Ph.D. Stacey Shelnut-Hendrick Kat Haro Sara Gorrell Scott A. Shields, Ph.D. Amalia Griego Michelle Steen Editor Houghton Kinsman Cristina Urrutia Mariah Briel Chelsea Larson Jayme Yahr, Ph.D. Art Director Sheena Link Contributing Julia Schaber Mallorie Marsh Photographers Rachel McFarland Contributors Brian Suhr William Breazeale, Ph.D. Rose Montillano CROCKER ART MUSEUM ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS President Dante Allen Mike Genovese Gloria Naify Katherine Bardis-Miry Ryan Heater Chris Befumo Monica Hernandez Vice President Janine Bera, MD Jennifer Lee Garry Maisel José Blanco Timothy Lien Treasurer Jose Bodipo-Memba William Jahmal Miller Christopher Holben Dan Brunner Mitchell Ostwald Secretary Simon Chiu Simone Miller Rathe Daniel Howard Claudia Coleman Patricia Rodriguez Susan Edling Chrisa Pappas Sioukas Past President Steven Felderstein Glenn Sorensen Randy Sater Laura Fergerson Julie Teel Marcy Friedman R. Parker White Kimberly Garza CROCKER ART MUSEUM CO-TRUSTEE Jay Schenirer, Vice-Mayor (City Council District 5) It’s never too ON THE COVER Paul César Helleu (French, 1859–1927), The Final Touch, ca 1885. Pastel on buff wove paper, early to start 20 3/4 x 17 1/2 in. Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Museum purchase with funds provided by Brenda and Lester Crain, Hyde Family Foundations, Irene and Joe Orgill and the Rose Family Foundation, 19 9 3 . 7. 3 4 . planning your CONTACT INFORMATION General Information Hours 2022/2023 (916) 808-7000 Thursday – Sunday, 10 AM – 5 PM crockerart.org Closed: Mondays, Tuesdays, @crockerart Wednesdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, events! and New Year’s Day The Crocker is located in Sacramento at 216 O Street, Admission For more details, email: between 2nd and 3rd streets. Members and children (5 or under) FREE Adults $12 [email protected] We acknowledge that the Seniors, college students, and military $8 Crocker Art Museum is on the Youth (6 – 17) $6 traditional land of the Nisenan Every third Sunday of the month is people, and the current state of Pay What You Wish Sunday, California is the homeland of sponsored by: many tribes. We are honored to be here today. Funded in part by the Cultural Arts Award Printing partially underwritten of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts by Fong & Fong Printers Commission with support from the city and Lithographers. and county of Sacramento. 4 Thank you for supporting the Crocker! / DIRECTOR’S LETTER / DEAR MEMBERS, all is nearly upon us, and as the year draws to created position established through the generosity of Anne a close, it truly feels like a time to celebrate. Like and Malcolm McHenry in honor of one of Sacramento’s F many of you, I feel I can finally exhale, albeit still foremost ceramic artists, Ruth Rippon. Rachel, one of the wearing a mask, and as we emerge from the COVID-19 world’s leading ceramics specialists, comes to us from the lockdown, I am so grateful for our community and your Gardiner Museum in Toronto, a museum dedicated to continued support. ceramic arts. We are pleased to welcome her to the Crocker. Over the summer, the Crocker’s staff was delighted to The Sacramento and Bay Area regions have played an welcome donors, members, and visitors back to the Museum important role in the development of clay as an art form, for new exhibitions and programs, and we are excited to so we are also excited that Sacramento will be hosting the share our upcoming shows: the sure-to-be popular Monet 2022 conference of the National Council on Education for to Matisse: Masterworks of French Impressionism from the the Ceramic Arts (NCECA), which will bring thousands Dixon Gallery and Gardens; and Towns, Trains, and Terrain: of clay artists to our city. I have often said, what Seattle is Early California Prints from the Pope Collection. Showcasing to glass, Sacramento can be to clay. The conference theme, works of French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, “Fertile Ground,” refers to the many influential ceramists Monet to Matisse brings an exciting snapshot of late 19th who have worked in our area and Sacramento’s position and early 20th-century France to Sacramento, and the as an agricultural powerhouse. Pope collection features a significant gift of rare works on During the run of the conference (March 16–19), the paper from Gold Rush-era California. Crocker will feature four shows highlighting clay and, in I am also excited to share our upcoming plans related this issue, you can read about the first two, which open this to the Crocker’s extensive ceramics collection. With more fall: Stephen De Staebler: Masks and Monumental Figures, than 5,000 objects, the Crocker’s broad holdings provide and Hands and Earth: Contemporary Japanese Ceramics. an incredible resource for the display and study of clay, Joining these shows early next year will be two with examples ranging from ancient Asian vessels to 18th- additional clay-focused exhibitions. The first examines century German porcelain tableware to internationally the Candy Store Gallery in Folsom (1962–1992), which renowned contemporary ceramic sculpture and more. As sold humorous and irreverent art by local artists, many of a step in our continued growth in this area, I am happy to whom worked in clay and are nationally acclaimed today. announce that Rachel Gotlieb, Ph.D., has been hired as The second, a show organized in partnership with NCECA the inaugural Ruth Rippon Curator of Ceramics, a newly and guest-curated by Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy, a New York and Los Angeles-based curator, writer, and arts administrator, focuses on themes of belonging and identity. Now, more than ever, there is much to be excited about at the Crocker. I look forward to seeing you in the galleries as we celebrate creativity, art, and the Crocker’s connection to the universal medium of clay. LIAL A. JONES MORT AND MARCY FRIEDMAN DIRECTOR & CEO crockerart.org SEPT | OCT | NOV | DEC 2021 ARTLETTER 5 Toshio Aoki (American, born Japan, 1854–1912), Bowl on Stand and Serving Plates, n.d. Porcelain: bowl, 4 11/16 x 8 15/16 in. (diam.); plates, 15/16 x 7 9/16 in. (diam.) Crocker Art Museum, gift in honor of Hiroko Ninomiya and the late Professor Casey Ninomiya by Darrell Corti, 2020.120.1-.13. 6 Thank you for supporting the Crocker! / COLLECTION NEWS / Toshio Aoki’s Work Enters the Collection his whimsical bowl and accompanying plates were Aoki ultimately settled in San Francisco, worked as a commercial designed and painted by Aoki Toshio (1854–1912); known artist, and became recognized for his paintings and comic drawings. T as Toshio Aoki after he immigrated to California. The set, The latter secured him work as an illustrator for the San Francisco which included twelve plates, would certainly have delighted guests Call and other publications. He also worked for G. T. Marsh and and may have been used at one of Aoki’s lavish, themed parties, Company, a premier California retailer of Asian art and objects with which he sometimes threw for others who sought his services in shops in San Francisco, Coronado, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and decorating and entertaining. Ornamented with anthropomorphized Los Angeles. Through this and other venues, Aoki sold decorative fruit, vegetables, animals, tableware, and serving ware, each piece arts, clothing, hand-painted parasols and lanterns, and other in the set is unique, though shared visual details unify the group: products. Though he is known to have produced hand-painted colors recur on each plate, and a lantern appears throughout. About ceramics in Japan, these are very rare today. This set was recently 120 years old, each piece is perfectly preserved and feels as charming donated to the Crocker by food-and-wine expert Darrell Corti, and contemporary today as the day Aoki painted it.