Luis Cruz Azaceta at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, UC Davis, CA

Luis Cruz Azaceta is included in a group exhibition titled New Flavors: Collected at the Candy Store at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, US Davis, CA. This exhibition celebrates the legacy of Adeliza McHugh and her trailblazing gallery, the Candy Store, in Folsom, CA. McHugh founded the Candy Store in 1962 as an actual confectionary, however she converted the business into a gallery shortly thereafter which championed an emerging group of artists from the Sacramento region and beyond who, as McHugh liked to say, created art with a “kick.”

Azaceta, whose 1979 painting City Lamp is included in the exhibition, had several solo exhibitions at the Candy Store in the 1980s. He lived in California for only one academic year while teaching at UC Davis from 1980-81, by invitation of Robert Arneson, however upon being introcuded to McHugh he became a regular addition to the gallery’s program. “Adeliza was like a cult figure,” Azaceta remembers, “a beloved little old lady who [had] a good eye for selecting the best of each artist’s work and selling it… I have always upheld that Adeliza deserves a huge monument for managing to create collectors and art lovers in that neighborhood, in the middle of passive “suburbia.””

The exhibition opens on July 1 and remains on view through November 21, 2021.

More information can be found here.