During the 1960s, UC Davis was a place where some of the nation’s most adventuresome artists worked and taught, thriving in a protected hothouse of creativity.

This artistic flowering is in the spotlight again in the new exhibition Fertile Ground: Art and Community in California at the Oakland Museum of California. It examines how the university became a force in contemporary art in California and beyond with pioneering art department faculty members Robert Arneson, Wayne Thiebaud, William T. Wiley, Roy De Forest and Manuel Neri, and students Bruce Nauman, Deborah Butterfield, Peter Vandenberge and David Gilhooly.

Davis was a crucible and cradle of so many important developments,” says Drew Johnson, the museum curator of photography and visual culture and one of the curators of the exhibition. “It offered a remarkable set of circumstances where the artists had tremendous freedom.

The joint exhibition brings together works from its two organizers, the Oakland Museum of California and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art — their first collaboration, in fact.

Fertile Ground also examines the public art and mural projects in San Francisco during the 1930s; the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) during the post-World War II era; and a handmade aesthetic that emerged in San Francisco’s Mission District during the dot-com boom of the 1990s.

UC Davis artists will be represented by about 20 works, and the exhibition will include a few objects on loan from the Fine Arts Collection at UC Davis, such as Arneson cups.

Read the rest of the article, “Spotlight on UC Davis’ Artistic Legacy” in UC Davis News.