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UC Davis News: General Interest
UC Davis Gets an $860,000 birthday Gift from Wayne Thiebaud
Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
The Richard L. Nelson Gallery and Fine Arts Collection at the University of California, Davis, has received a gift of 20 Wayne Thiebaud hand-worked prints with an estimated value of $860,000, campus officials announced today. The prints are a gift from the artist and his wife, Betty Jean, in honor of the university's centennial. With the acquisition of the new prints, the university now has 114 works in its permanent collection by Thiebaud, one of the most important and acclaimed modern American artists and a member of the UC Davis art department faculty since 1960. "This wonderful gift adds immeasurably to the university's fine arts collection," said Jessie Ann Owens, dean of the division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies. "It will be an invaluable resource for teaching students in both art studio and art history. Imagine the excitement of being able to study such works of art in their original." The gallery expects to mount a public exhibit of the newly acquired prints in January 2010. Photographs of the prints can be seen at: http://www.ucdavis.edu/spotlight/1008/thiebauds_rare_gift_slideshow/. One of the prints, titled "Cakes and Pies," will be featured as one of a series of limited edition posters celebrating the UC Davis centennial. Among the 20 prints are etchings, aquatints, linocuts and lithographs created by Thiebaud between 1964 and 2008. The artist augmented each image, using colored pencil, graphite, watercolor or charcoal, to create one-of-a-kind works of art. Thiebaud is known for this technique, which allows an artist to revisit and rework a drawing or painting in a limitless process of search and discovery. The process enables him to forestall the "absolute resolution" of a work -- which can be "dangerously close to the art of taxidermy," he wrote in a 1992 book, "Vision and Revision." In contrast, the potential to revisit and change a work allows him to relate to it as "a living thing." The approach offers students an opportunity for special insight. "Students can be overwhelmed and intimidated when confronted by acclaimed and perfect masterpieces," said Renny Pritikin, director of the Nelson Gallery. "What is particularly important to Wayne is for students to be able to see, at first hand, works in progress, the obvious touch of the artist's hand in continuing to find ways to augment, change, and reinvent." Thiebaud started out as a commercial artist in the 1930s. In the past eight decades, he has established himself as one of the most important and honored artists of his generation -- although he prefers to be called a simple "painter" rather than an artist. President Clinton awarded him the National Medal of Arts in 1994. California Gov. Gray Davis presented him with the Governor's Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts in 1991. He is an elected member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, an academician of the National Academy of Design and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a recipient of the National Arts Club's Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award, the American Academy of Design's Lifetime Achievement Award for Art, and many other prestigious prizes, including four honorary degrees. His works are on display at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, the Chicago Art Institute and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among other institutions. Thiebaud continues to teach occasional classes as an emeritus member of the UC Davis art department, and has advised the campus on plans for a proposed UC Davis Museum of Art to be built on land next to the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. The newly acquired prints are the latest of many gifts to the university by Thiebaud and his family. In 1996, he gave 31 works on paper to the university's Fine Arts Collection, including rapidly executed sketchbook pages in pen and ink, exacting figure studies in pencil and charcoal, etchings of landscape reworked in pen and ink, and color and still-life studies in pastel, at the time valued at more than $125,000. Between 1971 and 1992, he gave the university more than 300 works by other artists, all from his private collection, including works by fellow UC Davis art professors Robert Arneson, Roy de Forest and Manuel Neri and by such other prominent artists as Franz Kline, Elaine de Kooning and Gregory Kondos. About UC Davis For 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 31,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $500 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges -- Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science -- and advanced degrees from five professional schools: Education, Law, Management, Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine. The UC Davis School of Medicine and UC Davis Medical Center are located on the Sacramento campus near downtown.
Fall Festival Celebrates 100 Years of UC Davis
Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
One hundred years after the first students took up residence at the University of California, Davis, yet another class has arrived: the Centennial Class. That calls for a celebration, one the university is calling the Centennial Fall Festival. It starts this Friday (Oct. 10) and includes an Academic Showcase, college and school open houses, Pajamarino and homecoming football, and a downtown street fair before concluding next Wednesday (Oct. 15) with the unveiling of the Centennial Walk on the Quad. Full details of events on- and off-campus are available at http://centennial.ucdavis.edu/fall_festival.html. "Aggie Pride is 100 years old, so come help us celebrate," said Assistant Vice Chancellor Bob Segar, extending an invitation to the campus community, alumni, and all the people of Davis and the surrounding region. You can bet there will be birthday cake: 100 of them, in fact, at Central Park in downtown Davis during the Oct. 12 street fair called Celebrate UC Davis! The Davis Chamber of Commerce and the city of Davis are hosting the event in recognition of the historic partnership between the campus and the community. The Centennial Fall Festival's first event is the grand opening on Oct. 10 of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, the campus's newest academic complex. And while the RMI harkens to UC Davis' founding as the University Farm, the Centennial Fall Festival also will emphasize the university's modern-day status as a leading institution for study in all the sciences and the humanities, too. The Academic Showcase (Friday and Saturday, free) includes a reading by members of the creative-writing faculty, two public-health lectures related to this year's Campus Community Book Project, and a talk on UC Davis' new Landscape Heritage Plan. A full listing of showcase events and locations is available at http://centennial.ucdavis.edu/fall_festival.html. A ticketed event at 8 p.m. Friday features an address by Supreme Court scholar and CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, appearing in the Mondavi Center's Distinguished Speakers Series. His topic: "One Hundred Years -- A Look Inside the Supreme Court," including mention of events linked to UC Davis history. Tickets: (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787, or http://www.mondaviarts.org. Around the same time as Toobin's speech, hundreds of students are expected to turn out for Pajamarino, a tradition born on Homecoming Friday night in 1915 when pajama-clad students sneaked out of their dorms and made their way to the Davis train station to greet returning alumni. Pajamarino, organized by the Cal Aggie Student Alumni Association, is scheduled for 6 p.m. at the Amtrak depot near Second and G streets. After that comes the Aggie Pack bonfire off Garrod Drive south of the Schaal Aquatic Center, starting at about 8 p.m. The Cal Aggie Alumni Association puts on the Golden Society Brunch from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday at the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center, welcoming all graduates from the classes of 1958 or earlier. For Homecoming football, UC Davis takes on Southern Utah at 6 p.m. Saturday in Aggie Stadium. Tickets are available at tickets.com. Centennial festivities move off-campus Sunday afternoon for the Celebrate UC Davis! street fair, scheduled from noon to 4 p.m. along Third Street in downtown Davis. Admission is free. "It is fitting that our organization, which was the driving force in bringing a UC campus to Davis, is the host for this milestone celebration," said Steve Greenfield, board chair of the Davis Chamber of Commerce. Indeed, the chamber was founded in 1905 to lobby the state Legislature to pick Davisville as the site of the University Farm, a branch of the University of California in Berkeley. Davisville, of course, eventually became Davis, and the University Farm became UC Davis in 1959. And, along the way, enrollment grew from 18 in 1908-09 to around 30,000 today. Davis City Council Member Lamar Heystek, who served as a senator in student government while attending UC Davis, said: "Celebrate UC Davis! will serve as a momentous and joyous reminder that Davis has long been a college town. I'm looking forward to an event that celebrates the vibrant history and longevity of our town-gown community." Police will close Third Street for the festival, and UC Davis departments, the business community and food vendors are due to set up booths between campus and G Street. Organizers said the festival also will include a wine and beer garden, entertainment, children's area, fashion show and an alternative-energy vehicle expo. The festival's last day (Oct. 15) is called Centennial Day on the Quad, featuring two annual events, Chamber Day on the Quad and the Activities Faire, plus the dedication of the new Centennial Walk, a spruced-up and widened path in the same place where students walked almost 100 years ago. Back then, students wore a path in the dirt as they made their way between the West Hall dormitory (where the Memorial Union sits today) and a classroom building where Shields Library is today. By the early 1930s, the path had been converted to concrete, and the surrounding fields eventually became the Quad. The refurbished walkway is twice the width, at 12 feet, with a circle at the midway point and decorative granite tiles along the edges. The walkway dedication ceremony is scheduled from noon to 1 p.m. About the University of California, Davis For 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 31,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $500 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges -- Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science -- and advanced degrees from five professional schools -- Education, Law, Management, Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine.
UC Davis Honors Arts Patron Barbara Jackson
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Arts patron Barbara K. Jackson has been awarded the UC Davis Medal, the highest tribute bestowed by the university. Jackson, one of two namesakes of the Mondavi Center's Barbara K. and W. Turrentine Jackson Hall, received the honor Saturday evening during the opening event of the Mondavi Center's 2008-09 season. "As a philanthropist of extraordinary generosity and an exceptional volunteer, Barbara has had a profound effect on the cultural landscape of our region," Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef said. "By her example, Barbara challenges each of us to discover our own particular passion, to do more, give more and achieve more in its service." The award recognizes individuals of rare accomplishment. Past recipients have included President Bill Clinton and UC Davis law professor Cruz Reynoso, the first Hispanic to serve on the California Supreme Court. Jackson's more than 50 years of contributions to the arts in Northern California have ranged from the humble -- she once cut up her dining room curtains and stitched them into petticoats and bloomers for a Gilbert & Sullivan show at the Davis Art Center -- to the lofty. Her 2001 gift of $5 million to name the Mondavi Center's main performance hall set a record at the time as the largest gift by an individual to the arts in the Sacramento region; it was instrumental in making the Mondavi Center a reality. Now in its seventh season, the Mondavi Center has established itself as a world-class performing arts facility and regional destination for the best in classical music, dance, distinguished speakers, jazz, theater and world music, as well as a center for education and public service. "Barbara is passionate about all aspects of musical performance. She helped make possible an extraordinary concert hall, one which performers of the highest caliber seek out because the acoustics are so good," said Jessie Ann Owens, professor of music and dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies. "She also is deeply invested in the careers and lives of young performers. Imagine the enrichment her philanthropy makes possible -- the extraordinary musical experiences for audience members and performers alike. What a gift she has given us all!" Jackson moved to Davis in the early 1950s with her late husband when he joined the UC Davis history department faculty. During the next five decades, she served as president of the University Farm Circle, was a charter member of what is now the Sutter Davis Hospital Auxiliary and organized the Davis chapter of the Embroiderers Guild of America. She also helped to found the Davis Theatrical Costumers Guild, a group of volunteers who designed and sewed costumes for schools and community theater groups from the 1950s through 2006, working at sewing machines set up on card tables in the dining room of Jackson's Davis home. For 10 years, Jackson was an award-winning costume designer, seamstress and wardrobe mistress for the Sacramento Opera. She is also a trustee emerita of the UC Davis Foundation and a founding member of the Friends of UC Davis Presents. In addition to the $5 million gift to name Jackson Hall, Jackson has endowed the Barbara K. Jackson Chair in Orchestral Conducting, the Barbara K. Jackson Chair in Choral Conducting and the Barbara K. Jackson Endowed Fellowship in Student Conducting. Before her husband's death in 2000, the couple made numerous other gifts to the campus, including gifts to establish two new endowments in the Department of History: the W. Turrentine Jackson Chair in Western U.S. History and the W. Turrentine Jackson Graduate Fellowship. Jackson's support extends to the Bay Area as well. For more than 25 years she has sponsored young professional singers through the San Francisco Opera's Merola Program. In 2001 she was honored as philanthropist of the year by the California Capital Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. About the University of California, Davis For 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matters to California and transforms the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 31,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $500 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges -- Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science -- and advanced degrees from five professional schools: Education, Law, Management, Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine. The UC Davis School of Medicine and UC Davis Medical Center are located on the Sacramento campus near downtown.
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