A show of oil paintings by one of the Bay Area’s premier painting groups, the Outsiders, is currently being featured at the Gallery of Sausalito’s Bay Model Visitors Center.
“Southbound Classic,” 24 x 30 , a 2012 oil/canvas work by Randy Sexton.
Published: July, 2012
A show of oil paintings by one of the Bay Area’s premier painting groups, the Outsiders, is currently being featured at the Gallery of Sausalito’s Bay Model Visitors Center. Through the Golden Gate and Around the Bay includes more than 50 paintings with many diverse scenes from around the Bay, as well as views of the Golden Gate Bridge in honor of its 75th anniversary.
The Outsiders—who have been shown, individually and collectively, in such prestigious venues as the SFMOMA Artists Gallery, the Hearst Gallery, Triton Museum, and the Charles Campbell Gallery—are known for their bold use of color and thickly textured paint. San Francisco art historian Nancy Boas has described the Outsiders’ stylistic line of descent as coming from the Impressionists through the Society of Six (the early 20th century East Bay group whose adventurous use of color broke from traditional California landscape art) and the Bay Area Figurative School.
Pam Glover, recently deceased but still shown with the group, actually accompanied members of the Society of Six on their painting expeditions. The seven current Outsiders—Nikki Basch-Davis, Pam Glover, Ray Jackson, Judy Molyneux, Bill Rushton, Randy Sexton, and Jerry Turner—encircle the Bay in their residences, from Cupertino in the south, to Lafayette and Benecia in the east, and Bolinas in the west. For decades of artistic friendship, they have convened in colorful sites all around the bay to do plein air painting (on-site, outdoor painting) together.
Art historian Boas, praising the Outsiders, wrote: "The Outsiders remain committed to the same quest that engaged the Society of Six... Not video or photographic or conceptual art, their work relies on oil paint, canvases, easels, and the rural landscape that looks much as it did a century ago... [The Outsiders] have the courage to value tradition in medium and motif at a time when artists largely seek the latest in technology, medium, or style—the latest in novelty and shock... Their work, individual records of encounters with nature, offers hope that painting in the open will become a force to preserve the Bay Area’s natural landscape by helping us to see it clearly and to save what we value."
Through the Golden Gate and Around the Bay will be on exhibit through August 6 at the Gallery of the Bay Model Visitors Center, 2100 Bridgeway in Sausalito, Tuesday through Saturday, 9 p.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free.
“Joy Harbor” by Nikki Basch-Davis, one of the seven current Outsiders being featured at the Gallery of Sausalito’s Bay Model Visitors Center.
