Presenting Summer 2023

All exhibitions officially open on May 25, 2023

The Summer 2023 Season is led by The Bruton Sisters: Modernism in the Making (May 25 –August 20, 2023), a traveling show organized by the University of California Irvine Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art. Curated by Wendy Van Wyck Good— local author, librarian, archivist, historian, and leading expert on Margaret, Esther, and Helen Bruton—The Bruton Sisters presents the work of three pioneering women who propelled the advancement of modern art in California, yet were largely overlooked during their lifetime. The exhibition, which also includes related works by several of the Brutons’ contemporaries, reveals the sisters’ innovative use of materials, creative approach to design, and fruitful collaborative process. This is the first group exhibition of the Bruton sisters’ work in more than 50 years.

Also debuting this season is a genre defying showcase of artistic versatility from one of the Monterey region's most formidable portrait photographers—Martha Casanave.

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The Bruton Sisters in Monterey

Margaret, Esther, and Helen Bruton grew up in Alameda, California, but they often visited the Monterey Peninsula as children. In the 1920s, when they were young adults, the sisters returned to Monterey to take advantage of its scenic beauty and vibrant modernist art scene. The Brutons loved the area so much, they built a second home here in 1924. Helen and Margaret settled in Monterey permanently in 1944 and lived here for the rest of their lives.

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Martha Casanave: EXPLORATIONS (May 4–August 20, 2023), presents a mysterious and compelling narrative of the Monterey landscape, both natural and man-made, through two series taken with a pinhole camera. An intrepid creative, Martha Casanave has largely spent her career practicing outside established traditions. Yet, traces of influence from West Coast landscape photography can be identified in works such as Untitled (Two Starfish), 2000, (below) which harkens back to Wynn Bullock's long exposures of moving water (Sea Palms, 1968) or Edward Weston's uncharacteristic shell in the desert (Shell, 1931). Weston was criticized for putting a shell where it didn't belong, and for altering the natural scene in a photograph. In EXPLORATIONS, Casanave also ignores the boundaries of dated rules to employ her chosen props; move shells, pebbles, and seaweed; and even introduces a staged character to her compositions.

“ For me, photography is like magic. One of the reasons for my fascination with the nineteenth century is, in fact, the invention of photography. But the pinhole principle, the camera obscura, which far predates the ability to “fix” an image, is even more mysterious and magical. Its allure is its very simplicity: a box with a tiny hole creating an image—no lens, no viewfinder, no shutter. It is purely optical phenomenon, unadorned by modern technology.”

The presence of photography continues in the Museum's upstairs Marble Galleries with the 2023 Weston Scholarship (May 11 - July 30, 2023), a community exhibition of award-winning photography by high school and college students from Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties. The photographs, selected from winning portfolios, were created in local high school and college photography courses during the 2022-2023 academic year. Founded in 2004, the Weston Scholarship is part of the Weston Collective, a nonprofit organization in Monterey County where science, technology, and art meet through photography. The collective seeks to spread awareness of Edward Weston’s legacy while preserving the rich photographic history of Monterey Bay.

In a gallery adjacent to the 2023 Weston Scholarship exhibition is a small collection-based exhibition, The Weston Legacy, featuring a selection of iconic photographs from past generations of the Weston family, including Edward (1886-1958), Brett (1911-1993), and Cole Weston (1919-2003).

Spread across the Museum’s entry hall and Coburn gallery is a star powered and playful exhibition of funk art drawn exclusively from the permanent collection. You’ve Got to be Kidding: Humor and the Absurd in California Art (May 11 – July 30, 2023) includes works by Gilhooly (1943-2013), William T. Wiley (born 1937), Robert Arneson (1930-92) and Clayton Bailey (19392020). Read more on page 16.