About the Collection

Today, the Mills College Art Museum's collection includes over 8,000 works of art. Although Mills College students have access to the collections through their classes, the Museum's collection cannot be left on permanent view because of its sheer size. A primary mission has always been to share its resources as widely as possible. Each season works from the Museum's permanent collection are show along with the regular season's program.

The Museum has approximately 6000 square feet and hosts exhibitions of contemporary work from nationally and internationally known artists from September through May. Exhibitions of historical importance as well as the annual Mills College Senior and MFA Exhibitions are also featured. All exhibitions are free and open to the public. A collection overview follows.

A Brief History

Mills College was founded in 1852. By the 1880s it had 1,000 works of art and reproductions in its collection as well as 3,000 books in its library. The founders, Susan and Cyrus Mills, had been educated at Mt. Holyoke and Williams Colleges and both were keenly interested in art and history. Mrs. Mills' sister, Jane Tolman, was an art historian who founded an art history curriculum in 1875 that was unique in California and unusually far-reaching for its time. A 1912 bequest from Susan Tolman Mills was augmented by other gifts, and the present Mseum building was constructed thirteen years later, in 1925. When the Gallery opened, it was honored with a gift of 40 paintings and 75 prints by contemporary Bay Area artists given by the college trustee chiefly responsible for the Gallery's completion, Albert M. Bender. This was the first public collection of modern art in Northern California. To this day, Bender's gift remains one of the most important collections of California regionalist paintings in the country. Bender himself later became a principal founder of what is now the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The Gallery's first director was a renowned graphic artist in his own right: Roi Partridge. Under his directorship (1925-1935) the Gallery became an important center for visual arts on the West Coast. Partridge presented American and European artists, craftspeople, photographers, and designers to Mills students and the Bay Area in general. Among those associated with Partridge's tenure were Alexander Archipenko, Ansel Adams, Diego Rivera, Imogen Cunningham, and Edward Weston.

In 1928, Asian art history was introduced into the curriculum, and in the 1930s the Museum began its tradition of collecting, displaying and studying Asian art. Major exhibitions of Chinese and Japanese art were held while Alfred Salmony, a distinguished scholar of Chinese art and a refugee from Berlin, was teaching at Mills (1934 and 1936). Another important refugee scholar, Alfred Neumeyer, came to Mills from the University of Berlin in 1935 to direct the Museum as well as teach museum studies and art history. Neumeyer's interest was in modern art and graphics. Numerous important exhibitions of modern art were held during Neumeyer's tenure, including the first exhibition of Lyonel Feininger's work in the United States (1936); a major show by Fernand Leger (1941); Lásló Moholy-Nagy and the Bauhaus (1940); and Max Beckmann (1950). For more than 25 years Neumeyer acquired prints that now comprise one of the Gallery's most distinguished collections.

The Collection

Ceramics: The Museum has collected and shown works in this medium since the 1930s. The Mills College Ceramics Guild, which became an important experimental base for artists like Peter Voulkos and Robert Arneson, was founded in 1940. Since then, notable instructors have included F. Carlton Ball, Antonio Prieto, and, since 1978, Ron Nagle. During Antonio Prieto's tenure (1950-1967) the San Francisco Bay Area played an important role in the evolution of crafts . Prieto amassed a personal collection of extraordinary breadth, including works by Henry Varnum Poor, Marguerite Wildehhain, Peter Voulkos, Robert Arneson, and Viola Frey. After his death, artists further contributed to a memorial collection, bringing the total to over 400 works, primarily from Northern California, but also from England, Japan and elsewhere in the United States. In 1970 the Collection was donated by the Prieto family to Mills College. In addition to the artists noted above, the Collection now contains works by Pablo Picasso, Bernard Leach, Beatrice Wood, Laura Andreson, Clayton Bailey, Howard Kottler, and Ron Nagle.

The Museum also owns a fine collection of Japanese ceramics, including some that date from the Momyama era (1568-1615). The collection's primary emphasis however, is on the twentieth century. Works by such modern Japanese masters as Shoji Hamada, Kanjiro Kawai (co-founders of the Japan Folk Art Association), Kitzoji Rozanjin, Morikazu Kimura, Toyo Kaneshige, Tatsuzo Shimaoka, Ueda Tsuneji, Fujiwara Kei, and Arao Tsunego are particularly noteworthy. Although these artists were inspired by the mingei (Japanese folk art) traditions of their country, their influence extended beyond Japan to such notable Western ceramic artists as Bernard Leach. Mingei influence is apparent in the American ceramics that comprise the Antonio Prieto Collection, as well.

Ceramics from the ancient Americas also form part of the Museum's collections. Featured are important examples of Papagayo Polychrome pieces from Omotepe Island, Nicaragua-works that date between 950-1000 A.D. The Mills College Art Museum is the only museum on the West Coast to own such a collection.

The Museum also owns an outstanding collection of approximately 125 ancient Southwestern ceramics from the Anasazi, Hohokam and Mogollon cultures. Examples include works from the Casas Grandes, Gila, Mesa Verde, Tularosa, and Chaco pueblos. The majority of these pieces, which date from ca. 500-1000 A.D., came to the college between 1980 and 1982 as the gift of Lt. Gen. and Mrs. W.K. Martin.

Paintings: The Mills College Art Museum owns a significant collection of California paintings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Artists represented in the Museum collection include such major figures as William Keith, Jules Tavernier, Anne Bremer, Maynard Dixon, Ray Boynton, William Gaw, Clark Hobart, Xavier Martinez, Thaddeus Welch, Eugen Neuhaus, John O'Shea, Gottardo Piazzoni, Granville Redmond, and Joseph Raphael.

The Museum also holds a small but enticingly eclectic selection of paintings that includes 18th and 19th-century French works by Etienne Jeaurat and J.L.E. Meissonier; important modernists like Lásló Moholy-Nagy, Diego Rivera and Rufino Tomayo; contemporary artists such as Wally Hedrick, Billy Al Bergston and William Allan; and an early painting by Frank Duveneck.

Sculpture & Decorative Arts: The Museum's collection of sculpture and decorative arts is diminutive but intriguing. Among these works is a lovely marble portrait bust by Ralph Stackpole and a significant piece by Beniamino Bufano as well as sculpture by Raimondo Pucinelli and Jacques Schnier. Perhaps the most unusual item in the Museum's decorative arts collection is the desk owned by the great 19th century progenitor of the English Arts and Crafts Movement, William Morris.

Native American Basketry: The Museum's collection of approximately 150 Native American baskets is particularly rich in works by California's native peoples. In particular, the collection of Pomo baskets exhibits a variety of size, function, weave and decoration. Many of the baskets are from the Yurok, Korok and Hupa tribes of northernmost California.