From the Archives:Flyer for the 1968 Fall-Winter season at the Candy Store Gallery, featuring the painting COURSing, by Jim Nutt.
In May of 1968, the self-described “Hairy Who” mounted what would be their fourth of six titular exhibitions at the San Francisco Art Institute, which included this painting. Two of the group’s members, the married couple Jim Nutt and Gladys Nilsson had just recently relocated from Chicago to Sacramento, where Nutt had accepted an assistant professorshipat Sacramento State. Also teaching at the school was Irving Marcus, a painter who was the first artist to be shown by Adeliza McHugh, the proprietress of the Candy Store Gallery innearby Folsom, CA. No doubt introduced through this connection, Nutt’s style and that of the Hairy Who more generally most certainly appealed to McHugh’s somewhat eccentric taste. Though her gallery had only been open a handful of years, she had already amassed a coterie of artists who represented the more flamboyant side of California art. With her gallery outside of any urban center, McHugh nonetheless attracted a certain kind of collector who was willing to make the trip.
The 1968 season reads as a who’s who of Northern California art, with the addition of the two recent arrivals of Nutt and Nilsson. In the main, the gallery’s program reflected what was generally an extended network of friends and colleagues, spanning the UC Davis and Sacramento campuses and beyond, who espoused such philosophies as “Nut Art.” Work such as Nutt’s and Nilsson’s was a natural fit, both in the local art community and the Candy Store’s program. Indeed, it was mere months from their arrival in California that both artists began showing at the gallery, a relationship which continued even after the couple’s return to Chicago in 1974. Later on, in a statement for the 1981 Crocker Museum exhibition celebrating McHugh and her gallery's program, Nutt and Nilsson described her as "unique, fiesty, notorious, independent, plucky, perceptive and expressive." True words indeed.
Flyer for the 1968 Fall-Winter season at the Candy Store Gallery, featuring the painting COURSing, by Jim Nutt.
Image courtesy of the George Adams Gallery Archives.
In May of 1968, the self-described “Hairy Who” mounted what would be their fourth of six titular exhibitions at the San Francisco Art Institute, which included this painting. Two of the group’s members, the married couple Jim Nutt and Gladys Nilsson had just recently relocated from Chicago to Sacramento, where Nutt had accepted an assistant professorshipat Sacramento State. Also teaching at the school was Irving Marcus, a painter who was the first artist to be shown by Adeliza McHugh, the proprietress of the Candy Store Gallery innearby Folsom, CA. No doubt introduced through this connection, Nutt’s style and that of the Hairy Who more generally most certainly appealed to McHugh’s somewhat eccentric taste. Though her gallery had only been open a handful of years, she had already amassed a coterie of artists who represented the more flamboyant side of California art. With her gallery outside of any urban center, McHugh nonetheless attracted a certain kind of collector who was willing to make the trip.
The 1968 season reads as a who’s who of Northern California art, with the addition of the two recent arrivals of Nutt and Nilsson. In the main, the gallery’s program reflected what was generally an extended network of friends and colleagues, spanning the UC Davis and Sacramento campuses and beyond, who espoused such philosophies as “Nut Art.” Work such as Nutt’s and Nilsson’s was a natural fit, both in the local art community and the Candy Store’s program. Indeed, it was mere months from their arrival in California that both artists began showing at the gallery, a relationship which continued even after the couple’s return to Chicago in 1974. Later on, in a statement for the 1981 Crocker Museum exhibition celebrating McHugh and her gallery's program, Nutt and Nilsson described her as "unique, fiesty, notorious, independent, plucky, perceptive and expressive." True words indeed.