Pasadena Museum of California Art
Pasadena
We learned from an article in the Los Angeles Times that the Pasadena Museum of California Art will be closing.
As the name suggests, this museum features California art. Specifically, its mission is “to present the breadth of California art and design through exhibitions that explore the cultural dynamics and influences that are unique to California.” It is unusual in not having any collection of its own. Rather, it showcases special exhibitions, three at a time. The museum lacks an endowment and has largely been supported by a pair of donors, the founders Bob and Arlene Oltman. It fills its niche well, but its unusual structure has proven to be unsustainable. In June, the board voted to close on October 7 when the current exhibitions finish.
The current exhibitions include: works by painter and graphic designer Grafton Tyler Brown, the first known African American artist to work in California; another featuring feminist artist Judy Chicago; and the third displaying sculptures by contemporary Los Angeles artist Brody Albert.
We visited the museum once, on a get-away weekend in Pasadena a few months before we started this blog. We did not take photos there, but our “PMCA” stickers can be see in this selfie taken outside the Gamble House.
While there we saw an exhibition featuring paintings by Alfredo Ramos Martínez produced in the 1930’s and 40’s, another displaying several dozen silk screened political posters from the 1970’s on, and the third compromised of studies done by Flora Kao of cabins in the Mojave Desert.
We enjoyed our visit and are sad to see PMCA close.