UCI Institute and Museum of California Art

🎥 Join us on April 22 for a special film screening and discussion at Langson IMCA!

In the documentary "Ina's Circle," filmmaker William Lorton learns that two paintings displayed in his childhood home in Salinas, CA were created by a relative—his great-grandmother’s cousin, Ina Perham Story (1888 – 1979). This discovery launched a four-year journey chronicling the life of the California artist, her work, and famous friends from the early 20th century—including artists Hans Hofmann, C.S. Price, and the Bruton Sisters. The film screening is presented in conjunction with Langson IMCA’s exhibition "The Bruton Sisters: Modernism in the Making," and is followed by a conversation between Lorton and exhibition curator Wendy Van Wyck Good.

Presented in partnership with the The Newport Beach Film Festival.

Film Screening: Ina’s Circle: A Documentary - UCI Langson IMCA Filmmaker William Lorton discovers two paintings created by Ina Perham Story (1888 – 1979). including artists Hans Hofmann, C.S. Price, and the Bruton Sisters. The resulting film, Ina’s Circle,

The Three Prolific Sister Artists from Monterey that Time Forgot, and UCI’s Museum Update UC Irvine Langson Institute & Museum of Art’s exhibition, ‘The Bruton Sisters: Modernism in the Making,’ will display the works of Helen, Margaret and Esther Bruton until May 6.

The art exhibition "Dissolve", curated by Prof. Bridget R. Cooks, PhD, closes on December 10 and you don’t want to miss it!

Presented at UCI’s University Art Gallery (UAG) at 712 Arts Plaza in Irvine, Dissolve examines through an artist’s lens the process of dissolving and changing form, both conceptually and physically. It looks inward and outward to explore the dissolution of self, identity, and relationships, as well as light, atmosphere, water, and environment. Learn more: https://imca.uci.edu/exhibition/dissolve/

Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, THEY: A Temple of Black Possibility [Allensworth Pt. 1, 2 and 3], 2022, Acrylic paint and inkjet print on watercolor paper, 61 x 51 in. Courtesy of KACH Studio, Commissioned by UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art on the occasion of Dissolve, © 2022 Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle.

Participating artists include Lia Cook, Erica Deeman, Ana Teresa Fernández, Chris Fraser, Joe Goode, Helen Pashgian, Sonia Romero, DeWain Valentine, William Wendt, and Eric Zammitt. In addition, the exhibition features Langson IMCA’s first ever artist commissions, When we listen to the watershed (2022) by Linda Gass in collaboration with Prof. Valerie Olson, PhD; and THEY: A Temple of Black Possibility [Allensworth Pt. 1, 2, and 3] (2022) by Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle.

The UAG is open Tuesday through Saturday, 12 – 6 pm. Parking is available in the UCI Mesa Parking Structure for $2/hour.

In 2019, artist Peter Alexander was invited by Langson IMCA Museum Director Kim Kanatani to curate an exhibition of California Impressionism from the Museum’s collections. Prior to his untimely death in 2020, Alexander had begun identifying works that he felt exemplified the California Impressionists’ profound connection to the light, space, and natural phenomena of California and the similar influence they had on his own work. On September 24th, we're thrilled to present "Echoes of Perception: Peter Alexander and California Impressionism," curated by Kevin Appel, Julianne Gavino, Kim Kanatani, Curt Klebaum, Claudia Parducci, and Bruce Richards.

Learn more about the exhibition and plan your visit: https://imca.uci.edu/exhibition/echoes-of-perception/

Langson IMCA is excited for the September 24th opening of "Dissolve," curated by Bridget R. Cooks, PhD. The exhibit explores how certain artists perceive what it means to change from one form to another. Through painting, photography, sculpture, installation, and video, selected artworks demonstrate how gradual and immediate changes impact viewers’ perceptions of self, one another, and the shared environment.

Learn more and plan your visit: https://imca.uci.edu/exhibition/dissolve/

Known for his resin sculptures from the 1960s and 1970s, artist Peter Alexander—born in 1939—began painting aerial views of Los Angeles in the 1980s. 🌃 Mediated through the artist’s aerial photography practice, nocturnal scenes such as “Cloverfield I” (shown here) offer snippets of the sprawling L.A. environs in which gridded city lights and trails of smoke—or are they clouds?—continue on, and originate from, well beyond the confines of the canvas. Highly detailed and geographically specific, Alexander’s aerial paintings are equally compelling for the topographical features they obscure due to his intentionally tight framing of a mediated bird’s-eye perspective. 🦅 📸⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Peter Alexander, Cloverfield I, 1988. Oil, wax and acrylic on canvas. The Buck Collection at the UCI Institute and Museum of California Art © 2018 Peter Alexander⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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in 1913 the International Exhibition of Modern Art opened at the National Guard 69th Regiment Armory in New York City. Commonly known simply as the Armory Show, the revolutionary exhibition introduced Americans to what were at the time shockingly modern works of European art. German-born American painter Agnes Pelton exhibited two of her early works at the Armory Show, both of which were done in a style similar to The Toilet, pictured here. Pelton described these early paintings in which she often used allegory to convey meaning as “interpretations of moods of nature symbolically expressed.” 🌼✨⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Agnes Pelton, The Toilet, 1911/1916. Oil on canvas. The Buck Collection at the UCI Institute and Museum of California Art ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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to Los Angeles, 1965. 👀 Hassel Smith captures the essence of Southern California car culture in this dynamic painting. 🌴 🚗 🌞⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Known as one of the preeminent West Coast abstract painters of the postwar period, Smith spent the latter half of the 1960s exploring figuration. Here, the artist’s familiarity with the conventions of abstract expressionism is nonetheless evident in the gestural brushstrokes, splashes, and drips of paint that freely blend together in large swaths of pigment to create an animated street scene. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Hassel Smith, L.A. Underpass, 1965. Oil on canvas. The Buck Collection at the UCI Institute and Museum of California Art, © The Estate of Hassel Smith⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Here’s a little to help you stay sunny during the winter doldrums, courtesy of Edouard Vysekal. ☀ 😎⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Edouard Vysekal, Joy, 1917. Oil on canvas. The Irvine Museum Collection at the University of California, Irvine⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Sublime Wonderlands opens today!🏔🏜️ Head over to the Joan Irvine Smith and Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Gallery to see over forty landscape paintings spanning the 1800s to the 1980s, including Maurice Braun’s "Yosemite, Evening from Glacier Point" shown here. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Joan Irvine Smith and Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Gallery 18881 Von Karman Avenue, Ste. 100, Irvine, CA 92612⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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General Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11:00 am – 5:00 pm⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Free and open to the public.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Maurice Braun, Yosemite, Evening from Glacier Point, 1918. Oil on canvas. The Irvine Museum Collection at the University of California, Irvine⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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"Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education." ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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To honor MLK’s legacy, we’re highlighting a work by politically and socially motivated artist Ed Bereal. In the assemblage “Focke-Wulf FW 109” pictured here, Bereal references a WWII N**i fighter plane by title as well as in his use of materials, which suggest machine wreckage and, by extension, the collapse of the N**i party. The artist re-appropriates the sw****ka, flipping it backwards from how it appeared on N**i insignia to recall its original meanings as a symbol of divinity and spirituality in Indian and East Asian religions. When this work was exhibited in 1961 at one of the first racially integrated exhibitions, War Babies, at Los Angeles’ Huysman Gallery, it dripped and reeked of oil, compounding its shock value and heightening its likeness to aircraft debris or a bleeding heart. 🖤⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Ed Bereal, Focke-Wulf FW 109, 1960. Mixed-media assemblage. The Buck Collection at the UCI Institute and Museum of California Art © Ed Bereal 10-1-18⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Mark your calendars! ✍️ Our next exhibition, Sublime Wonderlands, opens a week from today. 🏜🏔 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Examining some of the ways American artists have formulated a uniquely American identity through landscape portrayal while stylistically and thematically associating themselves with their European roots, Sublime Wonderlands explores enduring cultural associations of the North American wilderness with rugged beauty, limitless resources, and national pride.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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George Brandriff, Superstition Mountain, circa 1928. Oil on⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
canvas. The Irvine Museum Collection at the University of California, Irvine⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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