Art Galleries

Picasso, Bonnard and Matisse are among the ranks of great artists who loved to paint cats.

Friends of a local wire sculpture artist who is fighting leukemia have organized an event to raise money for his medical and living expenses.

Maxfield Parrish's "Daybreak" summed up the popular taste of 1920s America. The winsome image of an androgynous nude bending over an awakening girl in front of a classical Greek landscape was the ultimate emblem of youth, innocence and pleasure during the Jazz Age.

If the shiny black helmet of a Japanese suit of armor makes you think of Darth Vader, you are right. Made of leather, the armor is part of a show devoted to samurai culture at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.

For now, the local arts community is taking a hopeful wait-and-see approach on Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's commitment to the arts.

In the latest exhibit at Sacramento's Solomon Dubnick Gallery, Barbara Spring and Annie Murphy-Robinson offer works that are filled with emotion but thankfully leave sentimentality behind.

Second Saturday is a phenomenon in Sacramento -- a combination of art galleries, music, dining and street life that has the whole city talking. Here is a guide to this month's Second Saturday art walk.

If you've taken a walk through midtown lately, chances are good that you've unwittingly stepped on a piece of art.

Sacramento's largest art gallery is not just in the city, it is the city and surrounding Sacramento County.

David Kuraoka and his circle are the focus of a well-crafted ceramics show, "Firing a Legacy: David Kuraoka and San Francisco State University," running through June 1 at the Pence Gallery in Davis.

You have the Second Saturday gallery map in hand, but how do you decide which shows to catch? We can help. The Bee asked several local arts experts to give their picks for don't-miss shows in the recent crop of Second Saturday art openings.

Being a Sacramento enthusiast is like watching your teenage daughter prepare for her first high school dance. She's still a touch too heavy-handed with the eye shadow and a few inches shy of filling out that dress, but she's more refined than any of her facetiously busty friends, and you defy any punk who cocks his head the wrong way to disagree.

As spring comes to Truckee Meadows, area museums show off new exhibits that focus on everything from the environment to sewing buttons and buckles.

While the main attraction at San Francisco's Legion of Honor – "Artistic Luxury: Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique" – continues to draw huge crowds, a quieter and more contemplative exhibition, such as "Waking Dreams: Max Klinger and the Symbolist Print," is easy to overlook.

After all these years and all the decades of artistic acclaim, Helen and Alan Post have outlived nearly all of their friends, and it seems they have reached the end of their creative output.

Northern California artist Carol Setterlund, who was born in Humboldt County and now lives near Healdsburg, has earned a solid reputation for her enigmatic wood sculptures of totemic figures.

Sacramento is the new Land of Lincoln as four major museum exhibitions honoring the 16th U.S. president – and the 200th anniversary of his birth – roll out over the next few months.

Second Saturday is a phenomenon in Sacramento -- a combination of art galleries, music, dining and street life that has the whole city talking. Here is a guide to this month's Second Saturday art walk.

Ideas of home and homelessness play a central role in many of Grace Munakata's new acrylic and mixed-media paintings at b. sakata garo.

Anyssa Neumann: This up-and-coming pianist, a Sacramentan who is now based in Germany and Oxford, England, will perform works by Bach, Schubert, Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff.

The Sacramento Region Community Foundation has granted more than $72,000 to six local community arts organizations for projects that range from a rarely performed Duke Ellington work to an exhibit of quilts by the region's artists.

The Sacramento Region Community Foundation has granted more than $72,000 to six local community arts organizations for projects that range from a rarely performed Duke Ellington work to an exhibit of quilts by the region's artists.

WHAT: Concert violinist Janet Packer joins pianist Anthony Padilla in a program offering works by Irving Fine and Franz Schubert.

The camera as voyeur could be the subtitle of "Personal Lives," a show of works by six photographers at Verge Gallery in midtown. Giving us glimpses into the lives of ordinary people, the camera serves as a tattletale, telling us intimate details about strangers.

Second Saturday is a phenomenon in Sacramento -- a combination of art galleries, music, dining and street life that has the whole city talking. Here is a guide to this month's Second Saturday receptions.

Artist Terry Berlier wants us to think about the environment and what we're doing to it.

The official White House photographer is supposed to be a fly on the wallpaper and is charged with documenting history – not making it.

Here is a sampling of daily posts from Bee writers on movies, theater, media, fashion, music and pop culture. Visit sacbee.com/21q for a daily dose of fresh news.

In 1987, 26-year-old Mari Kloeppel was injured in a riding accident that changed her life. Up to then, her passions had been divided between her love of animals and her love of art.

The artist, already famous for pop art pieces that depicted Hollywood Technicolor icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, shifted his celebrity obsession from film to music and embarked on a quest to explore the relationship between sound and image until his death in 1987.

Second Saturday is a phenomenon in Sacramento -- a combination of art galleries, music, dining and street life that has the whole city talking. Here is a guide to this month's Second Saturday receptions.

Bay Area artist Bob Nugent's work is about a sense of place. Veering between romanticism and realism, his abstract canvases up at the Art Foundry Gallery capture the essence of the Amazon River basin and the rain forest through which the river runs.

Meet the Buddha as depicted in more than 40 various forms, guises and materials at the Crocker Art Museum, where Dr. Nancy Tingley has assembled them from several California collections.

Since the age of 5, artist Shonna McDaniels dreamed of naming something to honor 19th century activist Sojourner Truth, a former slave.

"It was serendipity," said Kim Curry-Evans, director and curator of the 40 Acres Gallery as she set up tables and chairs for the opening of "African American Currents: Contemporary Art From the Bank of America Collection."

DANVILLE – It wasn't demolition derby, but in the 1930s, some people were paid to destroy cars. That the money went to automobile dealers might come as a surprise.

All my life, I've been fascinated by the fusion of Italian and Jewish culture. I'm what's known in New York as a "Pizza Bagel" – there are a lot of us Italian Jews around.

Brian Malow studied pre-med at the University of Texas, Austin.

The 75th Crocker- Kingsley Exhibition was almost orphaned this year because the Crocker didn't have a space large enough for the biennial competitive show while construction of the museum's new annex is going on.

A funny thing happened to Stephen Kaltenbach on his way to fame. In 1969, he was riding a wave – a one-person show at New York's Whitney Museum, an interview in Art Forum magazine, international shows in Europe.

Second Saturday is a phenomenon in Sacramento -- a combination of art galleries, music, dining and street life that has the whole city talking. Here is a guide to this month's Second Saturday receptions.

Here are 15 ways to pick up some local culture and adventure on the cheap:

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