OPENING RECEPTION: 1ST THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 2008, FROM 5 - 8PM
IN HONOR OF THE RE-OPENING OF THE HISTORIC GRANADA THEATER in downtown Santa Barbara, Sullivan Goss- An American Gallery presents the exhibition “The Stage and Its People”. Sullivan Goss has amassed an extraordinary collection of paintings and drawings that celebrate the actors, dancers, designers, musicians, crew, and the patrons of the theater, with key paintings by acclaimed artists Walt Kuhn, Max Weber, and David Hockney.
To honor their neighbor’s newly refurbished space, Sullivan Goss prepared the exhibition to highlight the myriad collaborations between the performing arts and the visual arts. With that in mind, gallery owner, Frank Goss, and vintage curator, Jeremy Tessmer, worked to acquire significant paintings from the history of that collaboration. Much of the art world’s fascination with theater has to do with the novelty and beauty of the theater’s people. Figurative artists like Walt Kuhn, Max Weber, Everett Shinn, Dan Lutz, Ben Messick, Don Freeman, Dorothy Sklar, Joseph Fleck, Fred Penney, Frank Taira, and Arthur Crisp were alternately moved by the daring motions of the dancers, the mystery of musicians, or the allure and seduction of the back stage. Some of these artists, like Max Weber, got their start working with the Russian ballet. Other artists, like Everett Shinn and Don Freeman, got their start doing illustrations for the media’s stories about the theater. The collaboration continues with “The Stage and Its People,” now on exhibit at Sullivan Goss.
