CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

Anderson Gallery de Young Museum	Jane Hammond: Paper Work May 3 - August 31, 2008
I’m a mixer, not just in terms of images, but also in terms of methodologies. I use the found and the felt, the improvisational and the strategic. —Jane Hammond

Jane Hammond’s reputation was established by her paintings, and her art is in the collections of many major museums, both in the United States and abroad. This exhibition, which features many unique works culled from private collections, presents her achievement as an innovative creator of graphic art.

Jane Hammond was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1950. She earned a BA in art from Mount Holyoke College in 1972, studied ceramics at Arizona State University, and received a MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. After moving to New York City in 1977, she he began accumulating images from a variety of sources—including scientific publications, children’s books, books on puppetry, and charts on alchemy, religion, and phrenology. By 1988 Ms. Hammond had compiled a fixed lexicon of 276 borrowed images. Since then, she has been using this vocabulary to create paintings and works on paper, both fl at and three-dimensional, that layer prints, Xeroxes, and photographs with collage and handwork. This visual vocabulary allows her to explore context and meaning, while creating complex combinations of images that enhance the sculptural quality of the work.

This exhibition was organized by the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, Massachusetts, with support from the Susan B. Weatherbie (Class of 1972) Exhibition Development Fund, the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum Friends of Art, and the Andy Warhol Foundation.

The San Francisco presentation of Jane Hammond: Paper Work is made possible by Janet and Clint Riley.

Note: This is an abridged version of the article found the Spring 2008 Newsletter

Legion of Honor Reva and David Logan Gallery of Illustrated Books	Vollard Éditeur: Illustrated Books May 25th – September 28th, 2008
I am less interested in [making money] than in the pleasure of presenting a beautiful thing. — Ambroise Vollard

Vollard, Éditeur is the second in a series of exhibitions that focus on legendary publishers who were primarily art dealers.

Ambroise Vollard (1865–1939) was born on the French colony of Réunion, a small island in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar. After coming to France in 1885 to study law, he began to deal in prints in 1891. Vollard opened his first art gallery in Paris in 1893, and he organized Cézanne’s fi rst one-man exhibition in 1895. In addition to purchasing Cézanne’s art, he supported a number of other major late nineteenth and early twentieth century artists, purchasing works from Van Gogh, Gauguin, Bonnard, Redon, Vuillard, Picasso, and Rouault, among others. He held these for years, becoming extremely wealthy from their sales as prices appreciated.

By 1895 Vollard was publishing individual prints and portfolios by the artists he represented. He then began commissioning artists to create illustrated books, allowing artists considerable freedom to create images that were not mere illustrations of the printed text. From 1915 until the end of his life in an auto accident in 1939, the publication of artists’ books, which he was able to subsidize by the considerable profits from his sales, became the passionate central focus of his career. He is credited with being the father of modern artists’ illustrated book and with inspiring the publication efforts of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1884–1979) and Efstratios Tériade (1897–1983).

Vollard’s first published book was Parallèlement (1900) featuring poetry by Paul Verlaine (1844–1896) and delicate lithograph illustrations by Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947). Other books published by him include Gustave Flaubert’s (1821– 1880) La Tentation de Saint Antoine, (1896–1933) with illustrations by Odilon Redon (1840–1916) and Honoré de Balzac’s (1799–1850 ) Le chef-d’oeuvre inconnu (1931), a collaboration with Pablo Picasso (1881–1973).

Note: This is an abridged version of the article found the Spring 2008 Newsletter