RE:NEW  Building the Contemporary Collection

March 7 - June 21, 2009

Since its founding in 1941, the permanent collection of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art has reflected a distinct diversity as well as a consistently trained spotlight on contemporary art.  The focus of the contemporary art collection in the 1940s comprised works by American regionalists and young California artists, in the 1950s European-influenced modernists, and in the 1960s-70s photography.  RE:NEW, featuring works by Amy Adler, Edgar Arceneaux, Jack Goldstein, Robert Heinecken, and Candida Höfer, reveals recent acquisitions of contemporary art and photography being exhibited for the first time, and signifies our continued yet renewed interest in building the contemporary art collection.