San José Museum of Art

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It's About Time: Celebrating 35 Years

  • Screaming lips with smoke flowing down from a cigarette. Right below the lips, there is a sleeping donkey next to a falling elephant in the dark sky.

    Joan Brown, Swimming Party and Bicycle Ride, 1959, Oil on canvas, 64 x 66 in.; Promised Gift of Lavona J. and George Y. Blair

  • An abstract greenish sculpture that is shaped like a backward "S." It has a vertical smile in the middle—showing teeth and tongue with eyes on each end of the "S."

    Tony Oursler, Slip, 2003. Fiberglass sculpture, Sony VPL CS5 projector, DVD, DVD player, speaker,43 x 37 x 15 inches; Gift of the Lipman Family Foundation, in honor of the San Jose Museum of Art’s 35th anniversary.

  • Robert Arneson, Five Times for Harvey #1, 1982. Mixed media on paper, five parts 30 x 24 inches; Promised gift of J. Michael Bewley, in honor of the San Jose Museum of Art’s 35th Anniversary.

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    In 2004 SJMA celebrated its 35th anniversary. To commemorate this event, the Museum launched a gift campaign two years before to acquire 35 new works for the permanent collection—one for each of the Museum’s 35 years of existence. SJMA far exceeded this goal and unveiled more than 100 new acquisitions when It’s About Time: Celebrating 35 Years opened in October 2004. Among the artists included in It’s About Time: Celebrating 35 Years: Ruth Asawa, Elmer Bischoff, Joan Brown, Raimond Staprans, Wayne Thiebaud, David Gilhooly, Stephen De Staebler, Roland Petersen, Masami Teraoka and Peter VandenBerge.

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