Portraits Revealed
Mary Grace, Self Portrait, c. 1760s. Oil on canvas. SBMA, Gift of Mrs. Lenore Adams, 1961.35.
Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, Vince on Couch, 2020. Oil on canvas. SBMA, Gift of Lynn and Craig Jacobson, 2024.21. ©OtisQuaicoe, courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles.
Cynthia Talmadge, The Diplomat’s Wife’s Altitude Sickness on the Tarmac, San Salvador, 2024. Oil on canvas. SBMA, Museum purchase with funds provided by Kandy Budgor; Luria/Budgor Family Foundation, 2025.8. Courtesy of the artist and 56 HENRY, New York.
Alfredo Ramos Martínez, La pintora de Uruapan (Uruapan Painter), ca. 1930. Oil on board. SBMA, Gift of the P.D. McMillan Land Company, 1963.24. ©The Alfredo Ramos Martínez Research Project.
This exhibition features group and individual portraits from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s extensive collection. The essence of portraiture is that it depicts or alludes to a person or people. Over centuries, the artists in this gallery have told stories, fantasized, and revealed invisible emotions and beliefs. Portraits can be meditations on life and existence, opulent displays of status, or both. This exhibition presses on what counts as a portrait by including a few still-life paintings that use objects to suggest an unseen person or situation.
This exhibition features paintings by Bartolomeo Bettera, Lenz Geerk, Mary Grace, William Michael Harnett, Alfredo Ramos Martínez, F. Luis Mora, John Frederick Peto, Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, Luis de la Cruz y Ríos, Della Shull, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Cynthia Talmadge, and Francisco de Zurbarán.
- Galleries:Preston Morton,
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