Following a six-year, $50 million renovation, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) on Aug. 15 will host the grand re-opening of its renewed and expanded galleries.
Marking the museum’s 80th anniversary this year, the renovation of SBMA’s original 1912 building improves the gallery’s exhibition space, making it possible to show more of the 27,000-object permanent collection.
The renovation will also enhance visitor experience through improved flow through the museum; newly created galleries dedicated to contemporary art, photography, and new media; and new LED lighting. The project was led by Santa Barbara-based Kupiec Architects PC and executed by Santa Maria-based Diani Corporation.
The changes addressed critical needs of the building, including seismic retrofitting; replacement of mechanical, air handling, and climate control systems; replacement of aging roofs; improved ventilation; creation of new storage and conservation areas to safeguard a growing collection; and construction of a new art receiving facility and loading dock to ensure safe and efficient movement of art into and out of the building.
Concluding the first two parts of a multi-phase master plan for the site, work to date has completed essential renovations and upgrades while expanding the scope of the museum’s exhibitions, programs, and place as a public forum for the arts in Santa Barbara.
“We are thrilled once again to open our historic main entrance on State Street and welcome the community into a re-envisioned SBMA,” said Larry J. Feinberg, SBMA Robert and Mercedes Eichholz director and CEO.
“We can’t wait to share old favorites from the collection after years in storage and to present new exhibitions and installations that will help visitors understand the collection in a new light,” Feinberg said. “We are grateful to SBMA’s generous donors and the Santa Barbara community for their support of the museum to make this transformation possible.
“With rarely or never-before-exhibited works on view and revitalized spaces, we will continue using SBMA’s art and resources to transform and enrich the lives of people in our community and beyond.”
The transformation of the original 1912 structure highlights the restoration of original architectural features, including the rhythmic arches lining SBMA’s historic Ludington Court. The entry gallery contains limestone throughout, as does Thayer Gallery and the new Candace Dauphinot Grand Staircase, while other new galleries are appointed with oak flooring.
Visitors will enter the State Street front doors to discover a brand-new installation conceived by Eik Kahng, SBMA deputy director and chief curator, as a traditional salon-style hang with large-scale European and American paintings dating from the 17th century to the early 20th century intermixed with African and Pre-Columbian antiquities, as well as the museum’s monumental Roman marbles in Ludington Court.
The Lansdowne Hermes, a new focal point, will be presented on a six-foot tall pedestal, echoing the intended elevation of the Greek original after which it was modeled.
The more intimate Thayer Gallery will showcase rotations of smaller objects. The inaugural selection includes ceramics from the ancient Americas and the ancient Mediterranean, spanning several thousand years. As visitors ascend the new grand staircase, they will find works focusing on the human face from ancient civilizations.
The staircase and elevator access lead to a new gallery — SBMA’s first space devoted to contemporary art, even though it has been a vital part of the museum’s programming for the past 80 years.
Skylit and suffused with soft sunlight, this new gallery’s inaugural installation will feature a shining mirrored orb by Anish Kapoor; a neon piece by Laddie John Dill; Tony de Los Reyes’s 1851 (#3) (2011); a green and black acrylic lens by Frederick Eversley; and paintings by Kori Newkirk, Dorothy Hood, Helen Frankenthaler, and Roger Shimomura.
Also on the second floor, Facing Forward: Portraits from the Collection, organized by SBMA curator of photography and new media Charles Wylie, will present 25 works drawn from SBMA’s renowned collection of photographs.
Featuring works by Kwame Brathwaite, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Genevieve Gaignard, and Tseng Kwong Chi, the installation will provide a look at how the human face has remained a timeless and fascinating subject for modern and contemporary photographers.
A separate exhibition will be dedicated to photographer Inge Morath, one of the few women photographers to establish a career in the early 1950s as a member of the renowned Magnum Agency in Paris.
The adjacent Ala Story Gallery will be devoted to new media. Its inaugural installation, Mediated Nature, will showcase video works from SBMA’s growing collection that explore how the contemporary experience of nature has been shaped and influenced by current media technologies.
Works on view will include Diana Thater’s 2008 Untitled Videowall (Butterflies); a digitally-derived still-life painting and landscape-inspired videos by Petra Cortright, and two newly acquired videos of yellow-flowering plants by the Taiwanese artist Wu Chi-Tsung.
The renovated Von Romberg Gallery and Emmons Gallery will feature FIRE, METAL, MONUMENT: BRONZE, an exhibit that explores the bronze medium across millennia and organized by James Glisson, SBMA curator of contemporary art. The exhibit is presented in three sections.
The Preston Morton Gallery will feature highlights of American art from the permanent collection through a selection of 26 paintings and sculptures that tell the story of major achievements of American art from the first half of the last century, from the urban Realism of Robert Henri and the Ashcan School to the Symbolist inflected landscapes of Arthur Davies or Marsden Hartley, to the abstraction of Stuart Davis or Arthur Dove.
In Ridley-Tree Gallery, a refreshed installation from the permanent collection highlights the dialogue between European and American art through a selection of 43 works of art from 1755-1947, with the majority dating to the 19th century.
The new SBMA Works on Paper Study Center will offer visitors a behind-the-scenes view into the process of researching and caring for the collection. The Study Center, in the Davidson and Colefax Galleries, will allow curatorial staff to begin the process of cataloguing, photographing and digitizing 20,000 works on paper that have been in off-site storage for several years.
The center’s first installation will feature watercolors by Picasso emulator Eugene Berman, lithographs by pop artist James Rosenquist, and color prints by Los Angeles photographer Karen Halverson. The center celebrates the ways in which these delicate and precious works offer unique insights into the artistic process, from the intimacy of drawing and painting on paper, to the technical innovations of printmaking and photography.
SBMA will present Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources, Feb. 27 to May 22, 2022. The exhibit will explore the visual imagination of Van Gogh by placing his works in dialogue alongside some 90 objects that reflect his surprisingly varied interests.
For more about Santa Barbara Museum of Art, call 805-963-4364 or visit www.sbma.net.