The exploration of the human figure has been the pursuit of artists for millennia. Manuel Neri (b. 1930), a California native and former student of Richard Diebenkorn and Nathan Oliveira, has spent a lifetime accentuating the gesture, surface, and materiality of the figure. He renders his work in several different mediums that include plaster, marble, bronze, and paper. This exhibition, drawn from and celebrating gifts donated to the museum by The Manuel Neri Trust, provides a glimpse into the artist's creative process and his quest to define the figure on his own terms. Manuel Neri is known for his prolonged artistic engagement with the figure in a variety of materials, starting with plaster in the late 1950s and moving into bronze and marble. The seven sculptures in the outdoor installation reference Neri's origins with plaster and his expressionistic manipulation of the medium. By casting plaster in bronze, tactile surfaces are preserved and enhanced.

As a masterful sculptor and draftsman, Manuel Neri has always emphasized spontaneity, expression, and intuitive creativity as a hallmark of his art. This publication highlights Manuel Neri's most recent activity in this area--seven unique artist books that incorporate his original drawings and poetry by Pablo Neruda.

A new monograph of relief sculptures and related drawings by this celebrated contemporary artist. Neri is the 2006 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the International Sculpture Center.

The Rat Bastard ProtectiveÊAssociation was an inflammatory, close-knit community of artists who livedÊand worked in aÊbuilding they dubbed Painterland in the Fillmore neighborhood of midcentury San Francisco. The artists who counted themselves among the RatÊBastardsÑwhich included Joan Brown, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo,ÊWallyÊHedrick, Michael McClure, and Manuel NeriÑexhibited a unique fusion of radicalism,Êprovocation, and community. Geographically isolated from a viable art market and refusingÊto conform to institutional expectations, theyÊanimated broader social andÊartistic discussions through their work and became aÊtransformative part of American culture over time. Anastasia Aukeman presents new and little-known archival material in this authorized account of these artists and their circle, a colorful cultural milieu that intersected with the broader Beat scene.

This insightful volumes the use of imitation and the modern cult of originality through a consideration of the disparate fates of two Venetian painters - the canonised master Titian and his artistic heir, the little-known Padovanino.