Established | 1955 |
---|---|
Location | Santa Clara, California, U.S. |
Coordinates | 37°21′08″N121°56′17″W / 37.35230°N 121.93819°W Coordinates: 37°21′08″N121°56′17″W / 37.35230°N 121.93819°W |
Type | Art museum |
Accreditation | American Association of Museums |
Founder | Isabel de Saisset |
The de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University opened in 1955, after Isabel de Saisset, the last member of a California pioneer family bequeathed her estate to the University of Santa Clara. [1] The museum owns nearly 10,000 art pieces and historical artifacts, including the work of early Californian artist and university alumnus Ernest de Saisset and a considerable collection of California mission artifacts. The de Saisset recently completed a major renovation of its storage facilities and is open to the public free of charge.
The 19,210-square-foot (1,785 m2) building is located in front of Mission Santa Clara de Asís and has been a part of the university campus since 1955. It is one of only two museums in the San Jose area accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
The museum is housed in a three level building that conforms with the Mission Style prevalent on the Santa Clara campus and bears the de Saisset family crest above the foyer door. The ground floor holds a foyer, several rooms for visiting exhibits, and a large lecture hall for presentations and activities. The upstairs includes room for exhibits from the permanent collection and a bathroom, and the basement displays historical artifacts, artwork from the permanent collection, and houses viewing drawers for many of the European prints.
Pedro de Alcântara Brasileiro de Saisset was born in Paris, France, the illegitimate son of Pedro I & IV, King of Portugal and Emperor of Brazil, and his mistress Henrietta Josephine Mees Saisset. [2] He emigrated from France near the time of the gold rush intending to capitalize on the newfound wealth in the region. While in the area, he served as a consular representative in San Jose and founded the Brush Electric Light company in San Jose, California. [2] While in San Jose, de Saisset married with Maria de Jesus (Jesusita) Palomares (1832–1907) and had four children together: Henrietta, Ernest, Pierre, and Isabel. [2]
Of these children, Henrietta was the only one to marry, and none of the siblings had any children of their own. Ernest was the oldest of the children and began his education at Santa Clara College when he was sixteen. He continued as a student for three years, showing potential in French and drawing. During the final year of his studies, Ernest studied painting with Fr. Bartholomew Tortone, who approved of his work. Since art instructors were in short supply in pioneer California, the de Saisset family sent Ernest to Paris for further study in art at Académie Julian. [3] In 1895, he returned to California; however, he died four years later in 1899. [3]
Before her death in 1950, Isabel de Saisset informed the president and governing board of the University of Santa Clara of her wish to donate family real estate and the family art collection for the purpose of constructing a gallery and museum. Many of her personal items—jewels, silver, and tapestries—were also donated. Since that time, the museum has expanded its collections to include many objects from the United States and abroad.
The museum was opened in 1955. [1]
"Highlights of the de Saisset’s permanent collection include Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, and 19th century prints by artists such as Albrecht Dürer, William Hogarth, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Modernist prints in the de Saisset Collection include works by Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso." The museum also houses important collections of contemporary prints and photographs.
Mission Santa Clara de Asís is a Spanish mission in the city of Santa Clara, California. The mission, which was the eighth in California, was founded on January 12, 1777, by the Franciscans. Named for Saint Clare of Assisi, who founded the order of the Poor Clares and was an early companion of St. Francis of Assisi, this was the first California mission to be named in honor of a woman.
Juana Briones de Miranda was a Californio ranchera, medical practitioner, and merchant, often remembered as the "Founding Mother of San Francisco", for her noted involvement in the early development of the city of San Francisco. Later in her life, she also played an important role in developing modern Palo Alto.
José Bernal Romero was a Cuban-American artist, born in Santa Clara, Cuba, in the former province of Las Villas. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1980.
Binh Danh is a Vietnamese-born photographer and artist. He immigrated with his parents to the United States in 1979.
The California Historical Society (CHS) is the official historical society of California. It was founded in 1871, by a group of prominent Californian intellectuals at Santa Clara University. It was officially designated as the Californian state historical society in 1979. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, though it hosts exhibits and collections across California.
Squeak Carnwath is a contemporary American painter and arts educator. She is a Professor Emerita of Art at University of California, Berkeley.
Dustin Shuler was an American pop art sculptor and mixed-media artist, best known for a 1989 piece called Spindle, a 50-foot steel spike with eight cars impaled on it that became emblematic of the city of Berwyn, Illinois, where it was installed for two decades in the parking lot of a popular shopping mall. Most of Shuler's major works consisted of outdoor art installations, and the majority of his sculptures used elements of consumer-goods detritus.
The Triton Museum of Art is a contemporary art museum located at 1505 Warburton Avenue in Santa Clara, California.
Ernest Pierre de Saisset was an American painter, he is best known for landscapes, portraits and nudes. The De Saisset Museum in Santa Clara is named after him.
Beth Van Hoesen, sometimes known as Beth Van Hoesen Adams, was an American artist who was best known for her prints and drawings of animals and botanical subjects.
Michael C. McMillen is a sculptor, installation artist, and short filmmaker from Los Angeles, California.
Inez Mary Romanoff, known as Inez Storer, is an American painter and mixed-media artist who creates work in the magical realism genre.
Janet Delaney is an American photographer and educator based in Berkeley, California. Her books include South of Market (2013) and Public Matters (2018).
Henrietta Berk was a painter in the San Francisco Bay Area whose work was part of the Bay Area Figurative Movement taking place in the mid-20th century. Her oil paintings were noted for their strong colors and shapes.
Deborah Kennedy is an American author, educator and artist whose work has focused primarily on environmental advocacy and ecological concerns. She has also lectured on art and art history at Santa Clara University and San Jose City College. She has received attention in media for her art projects, most notably along the Berlin Wall before its fall in November 1989.
M. Louise Stanley is an American painter known for irreverent figurative work that combines myth and allegory, satire, autobiography, and social commentary. Writers such as curator Renny Pritikin situate her early-1970s work at the forefront of the "small, but potent" Bad Painting movement, so named for its "disregard for the niceties of conventional figurative painting." Stanley's paintings frequently focus on romantic fantasies and conflicts, social manners and taboos, gender politics, and lampoons of classical myths, portrayed through stylized figures, expressive color, frenetic compositions and slapstick humor. Art historians such as Whitney Chadwick place Stanley within a Bay Area narrative tradition that blended eclectic sources and personal styles in revolt against mid-century modernism; her work includes a feminist critique of contemporary life and art springing from personal experience and her early membership in the Women's Movement. Stanley has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts. Her work has been shown at institutions including PS1, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), The New Museum and Long Beach Museum of Art, and belongs to public collections including SFMOMA, San Jose Museum of Art, Oakland Museum, and de Saisset Museum. Stanley lives and works in Emeryville, California.
{{Infobox person | name = Leonardo Barbieri | birthname = | image = | image_size = | caption = | birth_date = c. 1818 | birth_place = Savoy, Italy | death_date = 1896 | death_place = Savoy, Italy | resting place = | education = | occupation = Portraitist, daguerrotypist | spouse = | children = | parents = | relatives = }} Leonardo Barbieri (1818–1896) was an Italian painter, who was active in the Americas in from 1840s to the 1860s. He is famous for his numerous portraits of Californios, produced between 1849 and 1853, considered to be California's most important collection of portraits from the 19th century, earning him the epithet as "California's Leonardo".
Ruth Tunstall Grant (1945–2017) was an African American artist, educator and activist in the San Francisco Bay Area known for her paintings, community activism, and arts advocacy. Her work has been featured in many invitational group exhibitions as well as solo shows at national and international venues such as Dallas Museum of Fine Art, Dallas, Texas; Rath Museum, Geneva, Switzerland; Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, California; San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California; and Los Gatos Museum of Art, Los Gatos, California. She had a strong focus on community service and advocacy of children’s rights and social justice in and beyond Santa Clara County. She established many innovative, ongoing arts programs and inspired creative activists, such as Marita Dingus.
Paula Zolloto Kirkeby was an American art collector, art donor, and the director and founder of a commercial art gallery. She was a co-founder of Smith Andersen Editions, 3EP Ltd. Press, and Smith Andersen Gallery. Many of the artists she worked with were part of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.
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