Estate of Robert Arneson
During the months of December and January, the George Adams Gallery will feature a group exhibition titled ATTITUDE. The exhibition will include works in all media by five artists working in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 60s: Robert Arneson, Joan Brown, Roy DeForest, Peter Saul and William T. Wiley.
Arneson, Brown, DeForest, Saul and Wiley all found their subjects in the every-day, whether comic strips, newspaper headlines or aspects of their personal lives. Each brought to their work an aesthetic decidedly outside the mainstream, and their choice of subjects stemmed from a sensibility that celebrated the differences between West Coast artists and their rivals, the East Coast Art Establishment. Their characteristic "Low Art" attitude lead to a number of home-grown artistic movements that flourished during the 1960s, in particular California Funk, Bay Area Figurative and Pop, and Dude Ranch Dada.
Works in the exhibition include two ceramic sculptures by Robert Arneson, one a simple - and inelegant - rose from 1966, and the other a pair of leering binoculars complete with a set of heavy lidded eyes. This last, a fine example of Arneson's early combining of Funk with Surrealism, dates from 1964. There are also two Arneson drawings, one from his 1968 Alice House series depicting his ranch-style home in Davis, California. Joan Brown is represented by a heavily impastoed painting of a high-heeled shoe (hers), as well as an ink drawing from 1962 of models playfully posed in the studio and a 1967 polychrome construction, Rock and Roll Rat. There are two highly colored, multi-narrative paintings by Roy DeForest, The Silas Newcastle Goes Down, and A Bird in Hand, both from 1965, as well as a drawing titled Doodles from 1960. Peter Saul's works in the exhibition include two paintings from his Ice Box series, as well as one of his earliest anti-war paintings, Vietnam from 1966. Finally, William T. Wiley is represented by a very early abstraction, Flag Song from 1960, as well as a watercolor from 1969, Hung Up Not Too Far from the Mill, which is accompanied by a rambling, zen-inspired narrative text that does - and doesn't - explain the image.
Exhibition Checklist
1. Peter Saul
Men / Please, 1964
pastel, ink on paper
21 1/2 x 30 inches
PSd 128
2. Peter Saul
Vietnam, 1966
oil/canvas
79 1/4 x 67"
PSp 57
3. Robert Arneson
Untitled (Binoculars), c.1964
glazed ceramic
6 x 6 x 2 inches
RAs 103
4. Peter Saul
Icebox #6, 1963
oil on canvas
74 1/2 x 63 inches
PSp 111
5. William T. Wiley
Flag Song, 1959
oil on canvas
61 1/2 x 65 1/2 inches
WTWp 05
6. Peter Saul
Icebox #3, 1961
oil on canvas on aluminum panel
69 x 58 1/2"
PSp 97
7. William T. Wiley
Hung Up Not Far From the Mill, 1969
watercolor and ink on paper
30 1/2 x 22 1/2 inches
WTWd 14
8. Roy DeForest
Untitled (Doodles), 1967
pastel, pencil on paper, framed
22 1/2 x 30 inches
RDd 29
9. Roy DeForest
A Bird in the Hand, 1965
polymer on canvas
72 x 60 inches
RDp 19
10. Roy DeForest
Silas Newcastle Goes Down, 1966
acrylic on canvas
59x60 ins
RDp 17
11. Joan Brown
Models in Studio with Powerful Lights, 1961
ink on illustration board
30 x 40"
JBRd 08
12. Robert Arneson
Gold Lustered Rose, 1966
glazed ceramic
29 x 24 x 11" irregular
RAs 65
13. Robert Arneson
Alice House, 1967
watercolor on paper
19 x 24 7/8 inches (sight)
RAd 51
14. Peter Saul
Cash, 1967
crayon, collage, ink on cardboard
30 x 40 inches
PSd 129