The TAJAN ARTSTUDIO GALLERY is pleased to present an exhibition presenting the creation from San Francisco and the Bay Area. The exhibition called "Over the Golden gate, 1960-1990", which features 8 famous painters from this movement, will be on view from October 20th through October 28th. Tajan ArtStudio presents artists from different cultures, often giving them international exposure, even before they are fully appreciated in their own countries. In October, in parallel with FIAC, we have decided to host an important exhibition entitled “Over the Golden Gate, 1960-1990” wich will honor major artists active during this period in San Francisco and the Bay area. This exhibition will follow the current successful exhibition at Centre Pompidou “The Beat Generation” and will attempt to add a strong visual element to a more conceptual approach. It will emphasize and strengthen in France and Europe the visibility and public awareness of this important American artistic movement.

We will be presenting in our beautiful Art Nouveau space in the heart of Paris, artists such as Robert Arneson , Joan Brown, Bruce Conner, Roy Deforest, Peter Saul , Wayne Thiebaud and William T. Wiley.

The Formative Years, 1957 – 1977

The group of artists who emerged from the San Francisco area in the 60s were united by more than regional proximity. The interconnectedness between education and later teaching positions within the local university programs, besides personal relationships, kept open lines of dialogue throughout their respective careers. Though not all of the same generation, it can be said that the artists represented here came to maturity in response to - or rather in opposition to - the prevailing New York-centric art of the period. As encapsulated by first 'Contemporary Bay Area Figurative Painting' at Oakland Museum in 1957 and later the 'Funk' exhibition mounted by University of California, Berkeley Art Museum in 1967, the art being made in California became progressively more unique and transgressive, establishing an identity, perhaps, of individualism that would continue to define the region. This is not seen more clearly than by comparing the works of artists such as Brown, Wiley, De Forest, Arneson, etc, who, despite working closely with each other throughout their careers, would nevertheless develop radically different visual styles. A prime example is the origin of their respective art as an evolution from the shared influences of their student days. Coming out of the tail end of a legacy of abstraction at the region's art schools and in the midst of the ascendency of new figurative painting and changing approaches to sculpture via clay, etc, in the Bay Area, the work they made in that period of transition shows the freedom with which they approached art-making. Here we see the assertions of personal preferences and most vividly, the parallels in style and approach: a laissez-faire attitude towards medium, a propensity for using found materials, an equal interest in the common-place as source material and an injection of personal experience and narrative - which remained a common thread for most the group throughout their careers - are clear. By the mid-70s, when all six would reach a level of maturity that defined their later work, the persistence of those early styles and influences remains visible.