Kay Sekimachi, Amiyose III, 1965. Textile. Oakland Museum of California, gift of the Art Guild.

California College of the Arts (CCA) continues its centennial celebration with ARTISTS OF INVENTION: A CENTURY OF CCA, a survey of work by 100 faculty and alumni, many among California’s most influential artists. The show opens October 13, 2007 and continues through March 16, 2008, at the Oakland Museum of California.

The exhibition features more than 120 works—paintings, ceramics, photography, video, sculpture, mixed media, installations, textiles, wood, and works on paper—and includes a large contemporary section from the past 20 years.

ARTISTS OF INVENTION: A CENTURY OF CCA was organized by Oakland Museum of California Chief Curator of Art Philip Linhares, exhibition designer Ted Cohen, and consultant Lee Plested, all CCA alumni. The contemporary section was organized by CCA alumni Liz Mulholland, Abner Nolan, Chris Perez, Jessica Silverman, and Bay Area curator Tara McDowell.

“ A balance of technical skill and independent vision has always marked the art associated with CCA,” said Lee Plested, a 2005 alumnus in curatorial practice. “The result has been some of the most idiosyncratic and expressive art in America.”

The exhibition, arranged by era, includes:

The Society of Six, a band of renegade plein-air painters from the 1920s;

California production ceramists, such as Edith Heath and Jacomena Maybeck, who taught at the college in the 1950s and 1970s, respectively;

Weaver Trude Guermonprez, who chaired the crafts department in the 1960s and 1970s, and textile artists Kay Sekimachi and Lia Cook;

Bay Area Figurative painter and CCA instructor Richard Diebenkorn, whose mode was further developed in the work of alumni Nathan Oliveira and Manuel Neri;

The modern studio ceramics movement, pioneered by Peter Voulkos and continued by Robert Arneson and Viola Frey;

Richard Diebenkorn, Figure on a Porch, 1959. Oil on canvas. Oakland Museum of California, anonymous Donor Program of the American Federation of Arts.

John McCracken, who began his explorations in Minimalism while a CCA student;

West Coast Conceptualism, which broke ground with the work of David Ireland and Dennis Oppenheim;

Photorealism pioneer Robert Bechtle and his peers Richard McLean, Ralph Goings, and Jack Mendenhall, a current faculty member;

Painters Squeak Carnwath and Raymond Saunders; and

A new generation: videographers Kota Ezawa, Désirée Holman, and Sergio de la Torre; photographers Larry Sultan, Todd Hido, and Liz Cohen; painter David Huffman; and mixed-media artists Lynn Marie Kirby and Amy Franceschini, among many others.

The complete list of 100 featured artists is available at http://www.museumca.org/press/press_cca_artists.html

CCA was founded in 1907 by Frederick Meyer, a German cabinetmaker, as the School of the California Guild of Arts and Crafts. It was known for decades as CCAC (California College of Arts & Crafts). In 2003 the college was renamed California College of the Arts, in recognition of the breadth of the curriculum. For a summary of centennial events see http://www.cca.edu/about/centennial/events.php

A full-color exhibition catalog will be available in October.

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