UCI arts dean, special guests unveil long-hidden works from highly anticipated museum

EVENT: UCI hosts the premiere public exhibit of 50 long-hidden paintings and sculptures from the campus’s forthcoming Institute and Museum for California Art. UCI IMCA will ultimately house two extraordinary gifts, The Buck Collection and The Irvine Museum Collection, totaling more than 4,400 works by major California artists spanning every period from impressionism to now.

WHEN/WHERE: 1-5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, at the University Art Gallery (bldg. 712, grid D8 on campus map: https://communications.uci.edu/documents/pdf/UCI_16_map_campus_core.pdf) and the Contemporary Arts Center Gallery (bldg. 721, grid D7)

INFORMATION: Parking is available in the Mesa Parking Structure (grid C7 on campus map). Media planning to attend should contact Jaime DeJong at 949-824-2189 (work) or 949-933-2097 (cell) or jdejong@uci.edu. Parking is complimentary for media who RSVP in advance.

HIGHLIGHTS:

1 p.m. – Private reception at the University Art Gallery (media welcome)
Guests will include UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman; Stephen Barker, executive director of IMCA and dean of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts; Christina Buck, daughter of The Buck Collection donor Gerald Buck; and Irvine Museum Collection donor James Irvine Swinden.

2-5 p.m. – Public opening of “First Glimpse: Introducing The Buck Collection”

Art from both gifts to IMCA is on view for free through the new year:

At the University Art Gallery and the Contemporary Arts Center Gallery is “First Glimpse: Introducing The Buck Collection,” which features works by such California artists as Richard Diebenkorn, Joan Brown, Ed Ruscha, Wayne Thiebaud and Helen Lundeberg. Exhibit hours are noon to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, Sept. 29 to Jan. 5.

Across town, at 18881 Von Karman Ave., are two shows from The Irvine Museum Collection. “Drawing on the Past: Works on Paper” – which features drawings, pastels, watercolors and etchings by California artists dating from the 1880s – runs through Nov. 1. “Upon a Painted Ocean: An Ode to the California Coast” runs from Nov. 10 through March 30. The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. 

BACKGROUND: The UCI Institute and Museum for California Art will establish a research center and curated shows of more than 4,400 paintings and sculptures donated by the estate of Orange County developer Gerald Buck and by The Irvine Museum. “The public, scholars and critics are going to see major artists’ works that they never knew existed,” said executive director Barker. Every school on campus will work with the institute, from chemists analyzing paint molecules to neurobiologists testing memory via images to social scientists and historians exploring cultural movements.