The Torrance Art Museum (TAM) is a museum for contemporary art, located in Torrance, California. It was founded in 2005 after granting museum status to the previous Joslyn Fine Arts Gallery founded in 1964. TAM is a nonprofit organization, exhibits contemporary art, painting, sculpture, photography, media art, performance and conceptual art through temporary rotating exhibitions in its 3 gallery spaces. The program features on average 5 shows per year, per gallery space, collects artworks in a digital archive on the website. Since 2009, the museum has been headed by Director and Head Curator, Max Presneill[1]
Inside the Torrance Art Museum. 2024Exposition in the Torrance Art Museum. 2024
History
In 1960, entrepreneur Marcellus L. Joslyn established a charitable foundation to build facilities for the elderly, aid hospitals, and fund colleges and universities. In 1961, Torrance became a major beneficiary when the foundation provided $75,000—half of the total cost—for the construction of a recreation center. Weldon Fulton Associates was hired to design the 8,760-square-foot facility, which was to include movie theater, a community center, and office rooms and classrooms for teaching art. The Joslyn Recreation Center opened on April 11, 1964. It offered adult craft and art workshops and special events for seniors and students.
Fine Arts Supervisor Erica Grubb was the first to recognize the potential of the Joslin Recreation Center. She developed art classes for adults and children, organized exhibitions, tours to famous art institutions and other social events. She created the Joslyn Fine Arts Gallery in 1964. Beginning in 1978, Grubb pushed the Joslyn to become a permanent art gallery, believing that emerging artists needed to broaden their exposure to contemporary art.[2]
The Torrance Art Museum was founded in 2005 by curator Kristine Newhouse (2005-2008), as the evolution of the Joslyn Fine Arts Gallery. Since 2009, the museum has been headed by director Max Presneill.
Activity
The Museum is a center for free and alternative art, It features mostly paintings, with an emphasis on conceptual art. From 2005 to 2025, it hosted at least 119 exhibitions featuring 2,296 artists (26 solo exhibitions and 93 group exhibitions), mostly in Torrance, California. TAM's first verified exhibition was «It figures» in Torrance in 2007.
TAM also has an artist-in-residency placement each year at the Cycladic Arts residency program in Alyki, Paros, Greece.
The Torrance Art Museum organized the TRYST/NOMAD Alternative Art Fair in 2022-2023 curated by Max Presneill and Sue-Na Gay. The first NOMAD section, in 2022, of the project featured 450 Southern California artists showing a range of different practices, as a giant pop-up exhibition at an empty building in Torrance - the Del Amo Crossing building.
TAM's exhibitions are mostly male (53%), with female artists at 46%. The most exhibited artist is Ichiro Irie. The average age is 46. The highest-ranked exhibited artists are Faris McReynolds, Gerhard Richter, and Wolfgang Tillmans.[5]
See also
Olena Golub.Ukrainian artists were invited to an International Art Fair in America because of their love of freedom and independence. Fine Art — №3-4, 2024, p.p. 36-39 (in Ukrainian).
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