Tag: Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Santa Barbara Museum of Art announces 2026 Winter/Spring exhibition schedule

In the new year, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art offers a sweeping look at how artists engage with time. Works grounded in personal histories, inherited traditions, and collective memory speak to the past while giving us new ways to access it in the present. Contemporary materials and lived experience illuminate the world as it is now, yet they also open space for reflection and reinterpretation. Digital experimentation and visionary forms gesture toward the future, and at the same time expand how we record, memorialize, and remember. Seen together, these exhibitions reveal art as a continuum—one in which past, present, and future coexist, overlap, and remain vividly alive today.

Santa Barbara Museum of Art to open expanded educational space on April 13

“Education is at the core of SBMA’s mission,” states Eichholz Family Foundation Director Amada Cruz. “The new expanded space for classes and workshops at the Museum is a game-changer. From the minute you walk into the light-filled white ART LEARNING LAB, you are immersed in a space for art-making with colorful pencils, crayons, sketch pads, and drawings on the wall.”

Feb. 25 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present ‘A Morning with Janna Ireland’

Janna Ireland lives in Los Angeles, where she is an assistant professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Occidental College. A broad selection of Ireland’s work was included in the exhibition Family Album: Dannielle Bowman, Janna Ireland and Contemporary Works from LACMA at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Charles White Elementary School Gallery. Ireland’s photographs are held in the permanent collections of institutions including LACMA, the Nevada Museum of Art, the California African American Museum, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago.

March 23 — SoCal Museums (including Museum of Ventura County, Santa Barbara Museum of Art) announce the annual MUSEUMS FREE-FOR-ALL Day

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA — SoCal Museums announces the 19th Annual Museums Free-for-All on Saturday, March 23, 2024. Over 30 museums—presenting art, cultural heritage, natural history, and science—will open their doors and invite visitors to attend free of charge.

Locally, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (SBMNH), and the Museum of Ventura County, all members of SoCal Museums, will participate in offering free admission. In the case of SBMNH, booking advanced reservations by visiting sbnature.org is encouraged and free admission is for the museum only, not the Sea Center.

May 19 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present FREE Talk and Book Signing of ‘The Butterfly Wood House’ by Architect Robert Ooley

Join us for a presentation and signing of the book The Butterfly Wood House by Robert Ooley, FAIA. Robert has been an architect for the private and public sector on the Central Coast for over 25 years. He is an author, playwright, and the Director of Facilities for SBMA.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Butterfly Wood house opens the door into one of the architect’s last commissions of his Prairie Style and is the only example of that time in his career on the west coast of the United States. Located in the secluded enclave of Montecito, California, at the corner of Hot Springs and Summit Roads is this 4,500-square-foot redwood treasure. This story weaves together the family that wanted a coastal retreat, a world-renowned embattled architect, and the house they made together.

June 6 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present free public performance of ‘The Earth Under Our Feet’ with Artist Ashwini Bhat

After 35 years in Southern India, transdisciplinary artist Ashwini Bhat now lives and works in the foothills of Sonoma Mountain, CA. Coming from a background in literature and training in Bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance, Bhat uses sculptures, installations, video, and text to develop a unique visual language exploring the intersections between body and nature, self and other.

Aug. 25 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art Presents A Day of Music in the Galleries

Featured musicians Jessica Guideri (violin), concertmaster of the Santa Barbara Symphony, and Amy Tatum, principal flute for the Santa Barbara Symphony, will play a combination of solo pieces and duets. Each piece will be roughly 20 minutes in length, each responding to a different work in the exhibition. Performances are at 1 pm, 1:15 pm, 1:45 pm, and 2:15 pm.

Through Nov. 3 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art presents ‘A Legacy of Giving — The Lady Leslie and Lord Paul Ridley-Tree Collection’

For over 25 years, Lady Leslie and Lord Paul Ridley-Tree generously supported the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in its mission “to integrate art into the lives of people.” Leslie Ridley-Tree served on the Board of Trustees for 15 years, President of the Board of Trustees from 1994 to 1996, and became a Life Honorary Trustee in 2014.

Dec. 14 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art presenting Talk, Book Signing, and Reception with Mary Tonetti Dorra ‘I Am a Portrait’

Join us for a talk, book signing, and reception for I Am a Portrait: Flash Fiction and Other Short Stories by Mary Tonetti Dorra.

In her newest book, a collection of short stories, Dorra has amassed a group of characters based in part on her own real friends and relatives who interact with those which are purely fictional. Some of the stories are told from the point of view of the works of art themselves and are based on pieces that have been in the Dorra collection over the years.

Dec. 15 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art features artist Edie Fake in Artist Talk

Edie Fake’s Suasion is a dazzling painting currently on view in the SBMA exhibition Friends and Lovers, an exploration of LGBTQ artists currently installed in the Loeb Gallery through March 2, 2025. In this artist talk, Fake will share insights into a widely respected and varied practice that includes drawings, paintings, installations, comics, books, and zines.

Jan. 28 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present From Page to Silver Screen: The Maltese Falcon

Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present “From Page to Silver Screen: The Maltese Falcon — SBMA Museum Collectors Council Film Screening,” from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 28 at SBMA’s Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara.

Through Jan. 2023 — SBMA’s Parallel Stories features artist Marshall Brown and the opening of ‘The Architecture of Collage’

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Parallel Stories features artist Marshall Brown and the opening of “The Architecture of Collage” at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct.. 2 at 1130 State St., Santa Barbara.

Layering, fragments, appropriation, cutting, higher cribbing, collage, and what artist Marshall Brown has called “creative miscegenation,” are all part of the crucible in which familiar themes are recast in art and literature. Is the resulting cross-disciplinary mashup an homage to what is left, what is kept, and what is removed? Award-winning andNew York Times bestselling author Jonathan Lethem joins artist, Urbanist, Princeton University professor of Architecture, and critical-thinking futurist Marshall Brown in a conversation about what Lethem termed the “Ecstasy of Influence.” Book signing to follow.

Feb. 9 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art features ‘Parallel Stories — Couples’ with Rachel Cusk, Siemon Scamell-Katz, and Andrew Winer

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art features “Parallel Stories” with Rachel Cusk, Siemon Scamell-Katz, and Andrew Winer at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 9 at the Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara.

Inspired by the artistic collaboration of Ed Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz and the SBMA exhibition Scenes from a Marriage: Ed & Nancy Kienholz, Parallel Stories examines what happens in fiction and life when artist couples work together.

March 2 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present Miró Quartet Chamber Music Concert

Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present Miró Quartet Chamber Music Concert at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 2 at SBMA’s Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara.

Formed in 1995, the Austin, Texas-based Miró Quartet, is one of America’s most celebrated string quartets, having performed throughout the world on the most prestigious concert stages. They won first prizes at the Banff International String Quartet Competition and Naumburg Chamber Music Competition, and in 2005, became the first ensemble ever to be awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. The Miró is quartet-in-residence at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, OR and Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival in Washington State.

May 4 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art will present the Art Matters Lecture ‘Men in Pink: Eighteenth-Century French Portraiture’

Though never as ubiquitous in the 18th century as the color blue, pink became the color par excellence of the French Rococo. The color was intimately associated with the so-called “Godmother of the Rococo,” Madame de Pompadour, the famous mistress of Louis XV.

July 6 — SBMA to present Art Matters Lecture on Zurbarán and Murillo

During the 1620s and 1630s, Seville’s many religious foundations kept Francisco de Zurbarán and his large workshop busy with commissions. After about 1640, however, Zurbarán’s sober and restrained style lost favor to the softer look and more emotional appeal of younger artists, and he began to actively produce paintings for export to the New World.

July 20 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present Reading and Conversation of ‘Blue Skies’ by T.C. Boyle

Returning to the Museum in what has become a much-anticipated and highly-animated annual event, T.C. Boyle, Santa Barbara’s prolific and perennial favorite, reads from his latest novel, Blue Skies.

Aug. 19 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present ‘Wares!’ exhibition artist Seth Bogart in Conversation and Free Workshop

Join WARES! exhibition artist Seth Bogart for a casual conversation, hands-on demo, and unique opportunity to create with clay and cardboard. Pinch, roll, repurpose, twist, glue, and build with the help from Museum Teaching Artists, and explore how the ordinary can be elevated. Dress for mess.

Nov. 1 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present Manderling Quartet

SANTA BARBARA — The Santa Barbara Museum of Art will present the Manderling Quartet at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 1 at SBMA’s Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara.

The Mandelring Quartet, founded in 1983, is the winner of major competitions, including ARD’s International Music Competition and the Premio Paolo Borciani. They are frequent performers at international musical centers and leading festivals such as the Schwarzenberg and Hohensems Schubertiades, the Lower Rhine Music Festival, and the Ludwigsburg Castle Festival. The ensemble was Quartet-in-Residence for the 2020/21 season in the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid.

Nov. 5 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present ‘Sketching Ideas’: Writing’s Visuality in Chinese Flower-and-Bird Painting

SANTA BARBARA — The Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present ‘Sketching Ideas’: Writing’s Visuality in Chinese Flower-and-Bird Painting Lecture by Peter Sturman, Professor, Department of History of Art and Architecture, UC Santa Barbara at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 5 at SBMA’s Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara.

Xieyi, “the writing or sketching of ideas,” refers to a particularly free-form mode of painting in China that showcases the artist’s virtuosity wielding a quick-moving brush to capture vibrant and seemingly spontaneous images. Forefronting the dynamic potential of the brush, the technique naturally calls to mind the art of calligraphy, especially the dynamic cursive script, but Xiyu’s association with the art of writing goes far deeper than surface appearances. Spontaneity implies naturalness and authenticity, even spiritual transcendence. Moreover, for scholar-official painters, Xiyu’s linkage to calligraphy offered an essential bridge between image-making and literary expression.

Nov. 9 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present free film screening of ‘América Tropical: The Martyr Mural of Siqueiros’

SANTA BARBARA — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present free film screening of “América Tropical: The Martyr Mural of Siqueiros” at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9 at SBMA’s Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara.

This free screening of the documentary América Tropical: The Martyr Mural of Siqueiros, is followed by a discussion with Dignicraft filmmakers Omar Foglio, Paola Rodríguez, and José Luis Figueroa and moderated by Edgar Garcia, Assistant General Manager, El Pueblo de Los Angeles, and James Glisson, SBMA Curator of Contemporary Art.

Jan. 6 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art will present Art Matters Lecture ‘Buried by Vesuvius: Conserving a Monumental Drunken Satyr Bronze Statue from Herculaneum’

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art will present Art Matters Lecture
“Buried by Vesuvius: Conserving a Monumental Drunken Satyr Bronze Statue from Herculaneum,” with Erik Risser, Associate Conservator of Antiquities, J. Paul Getty Museum, at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022.

In advance of the international loan exhibition Buried by Vesuvius: Treasures from the Villa dei Papiri at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles in 2019, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (MANN) generously lent the bronze statue of a Drunken Satyr for study, analysis, and conservation.

Jan. 23 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present Parallel Stories Controlling the Narrative: Both/And

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art will present “Parallel Stories Controlling the Narrative: Both/And” at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 23.

In a conversation and reading, Emily Rapp Black, award-winning author of Poster Child: A Memoir and The Still Point of the Turning World, a New York Times bestseller, explores art and disability in her most recent book Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg. With elegance, tenderness, and zero sentimentality, she deconstructs the mythologies of words like bravery and resilience and recognizes in Kahlo a twin at the art of creating to silence pain. Joining her is colleague Alex Espinoza, Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair of Creative Writing at UC Riverside and author of novels Still Water Saints and The Five Acts of Diego Léon, and the recent nonfiction book Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime.

March 13 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present ‘Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources’ exhibit symposium

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art will present “Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources” exhibit symposium from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, March 13.

In conjunction with the exhibition Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources, join five scholars for a one-day seminar on the themes of the exhibition.

March 20 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present ‘Vincent’

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art will present “Vincent” at 1 and 3 p.m. Sunday, March 20 at the Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara.

Vincent is the critically lauded one-man play, written by Emmy-nominated actor Leonard Nimoy, that paints a thoughtful, imaginary scenario about one of the most famous names in the art world, Vincent van Gogh. Based on excerpts from the hundreds of letters exchanged between the artist and his brother Theo, this version of the intimately scaled play features Charles Pasternak, award-winning actor and Designate Artistic Director of Santa Cruz Shakespeare, in the dual roles of Vincent and Theo.

March 22 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present Paris-based Arod Quartet

Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present Paris-based Arod Quartet AT 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 22 at SBMA’s Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State St.

With all four members only in their twenties, the Paris-based Arod Quartet has already dazzled awestruck chamber-music lovers in concerts at such prestigious venues as the Auditorium of the Louvre in Paris and the Verbier Festival in Switzerland.

March 31 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present Parallel Stories ‘On Freedom: A Conversation with Author Maggie Nelson’

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art will present Parallel Stories “On Freedom: A Conversation with Author Maggie Nelson” at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 31.

Author Maggie Nelson returns to SBMA’s Parallel Stories with a reading and discussion of On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint, a boundary-pushing, provocative work that explores the notion of freedom through four lenses: art, sex, drugs, and the climate. In this highly anticipated follow-up to the award-winning The Argonauts, Nelson continues to astound as “one of the most electrifying writers at work in America today, among the sharpest and most supple thinkers of her generation” (The Guardian).

April 7 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present ‘Van Gogh the Anglophile: Looking Through his Eyes at Victorian Art Art Matters Lecture with Malcolm Warner’

Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present “Van Gogh the Anglophile: Looking Through his Eyes at Victorian Art Art Matters Lecture with Malcolm Warner” from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 7 at SBMA’s Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara.

As a pioneer of the modern movement, Van Gogh seems an unlikely fan of what we call Victorian art. But his time in London left him with a love of English painting and illustration. He looked up to the pre-eminent English painter, John Everett Millais, and collected gritty, working-class images from London magazines. “For me,” he wrote to his brother Theo in 1882, “one of the highest and noblest expressions of art is always that of the English.”

April 14 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art presents ‘Shadow Art: Influences and Inspirations’

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art will present “Shadow Art: Influences and Inspirations,” Parallel Stories with Sameer Pandya and Andrew Winer, at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 14 at SBMA’s Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara.

The exhibition Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources reconnects this iconic artist to his 19th-century context and invites us to consider the artists, musicians, and writers he admired.

April 27 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present ‘UCSB Gagaku Project — Music of the Imperial Ceremonies of Japan, One Thousand Years of Elegance and Harmony’

Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present “UCSB Gagaku Project — Music of the Imperial Ceremonies of Japan, One Thousand Years of Elegance and Harmony” at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 27 at SBMA’s Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara.

In collaboration with the UCSB Gagaku Project, a multidisciplinary initiative spearheaded in 2019 by UCSB Professor Fabio Rambelli, SBMA’s Friends of Asian Art is proud to present a Japanese gagaku performance.

April 28 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present the Valencia Baryton Project at next Chamber Music Concert

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art will present the Valencia Baryton Project at next Chamber Music Concert at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 28 at SBMA’s Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara.

May 5 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present Free Community Day at SBMA for Santa Barbara and Ventura County residents

Santa Barbara Museum of Art will present Free Community Day at SBMA for Santa Barbara and Ventura County residents at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 5 at 1130 State St., Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara and Ventura County residents enjoy free admission to the Museum (including the special exhibitionThrough Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources). Enjoy art activities from 5:30 to 7:30 pm in the Family Resource Center. Proof of residence is required upon entry.

May 16 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present Ying Quartet

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present the Ying Quartetat 7:30 p.m. Monday, May 16 at SBMA’s Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara.

The Ying Quartet occupies a position of unique prominence in the classical music world, combining brilliantly communicative performances with a fearlessly imaginative view of chamber music in today’s world. Now in its second decade as a group, the Quartet has established itself as an ensemble of the highest musical qualifications in its tours across the United States and abroad. Their performances regularly take place in many of the world’s most important concert halls, from Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House. The Ying Quartet performed at SBMA in 2013 and 2017.

May 22 — Santa Barbara Museum of Art to present ‘The Sound of Stars Parallel Stories with Jake Heggie’

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art will present “The Sound of Stars Parallel Stories with Jake Heggie” at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 22 at the New Vic Theatre, 33 West Victoria St., Santa Barbara.

In this unique collaboration between the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and Opera Santa Barbara and in celebration of the exhibition Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources, composer, pianist, Grammy nominee, and Guggenheim Fellow Jake Heggie discusses the coming together of “The Starry Night,” a song cycle inspired by the art of Vincent van Gogh with text taken from his letters and poetry by Anne Sexton and Emily Dickinson. Performed by mezzo soprano Erin Alford.