90th Anniversary Exhibition: One Artist Contributes, Then Another, Then Another @ Richmond Art Center
One Artist Contributes, Then Another, Then Another explores Richmond Art Center’s 90-year history as a continuum, connecting artists, artworks, and community voices across nine decades. The story begins in 1936, when artist and educator Hazel Salmi founded Richmond Art Center as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) arts and crafts program. Guided by the belief that art is essential to community life, that arts education should be accessible to everyone, and that civic participation is the foundation of lasting cultural institutions, Hazel Salmi’s values continue to shape the Center today.
Centered on the connections forged through teaching, learning, and creating together, the exhibition brings archival materials into conversation with works by artists who have shaped Richmond Art Center across generations. Letters and audio recordings from Hazel Salmi open up to historic photographs of Richmond Art Center’s art studios, newspaper clippings documenting the Center’s growth, exhibition posters and student artworks reveal how the Center evolved alongside Richmond’s dynamic community and responded to its needs. These archival materials are paired with works by influential teaching artists, renowned Bay Area artists, and emerging contemporary voices, all of whom share a connection to Richmond Art Center.
Rather than presenting a linear history, this anniversary exhibition traces Richmond Art Center through relationships between artworks, archives, artists, teachers and students. It reveals an institution continually shaped by people who believed, as Hazel Salmi did, that art is a public good and that communities are strengthened when people create together. Ninety years is not the finish line; it is a moment to recognize a legacy still unfolding, one artist, one student, and one contribution at a time.
Artists: Fred Alvarado, Robert Arneson, Lauren Ari, Ned Axthelm, Clayton Bailey, Bob Anderson, Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff, Marisa Burman, Nicola Bucci, Joan Brown, Janet Lipkin, John Wehrle, Ilene Conde, Imogen Cunningham, Isiah Daniels, Andrée Singer Thompson, Roy De Forest, Audrey Garrard, Renata Gray, Bryan Gomez, Ralph McCaskey, Raymond L. Haywood, Rae Louise Hayward, Hayward King, Art Hazelwood, Henry Frank, Hershell West, Judy Stone, Julia LaChica, Betty Kano, Anna Kingsley, Ernie Kim, John Toki, Janice Langdon, Mary Law, Jennifer Linderman, Raymond Saunders, Viviana Martinez, Travis Meinolf, Eli Nguyen, Magdalena Olvera, Valerie Otani, Emmy Lou Packard, Patricia Patterson, Clayton Pinkerton, Hilda Robinson, John Roeder, Keena Romano, Kaleb Saephan, Alexis Saepharn, Jos Sances, Murial Savin, Nancy Selvin, JoeSam, Rikki Lee Smeltzer, Ilah Jarvis, Paul Kos, Virginia Rigney, Rigo 23, Felix Lucero, Felix Kuang, The Great Tortilla Conspiracy, Katya McCulloch, Kato Jaworski, Rebeca García-Gonzalez, Hazel Salmi, Sargent Johnson, Erin McCluskey Wheeler, Gary Harrell, Beth Thielen, Peter Voulkos, Rae Louise Hayward, John Wehrle, John Toki, Janice Langdon
Special thanks to all the artists and lenders who generously loaned works from their collections, including: Alameda County Arts Commission, Eric Murphy, Golden Gate Weavers Guild, Hercules Middle School, John Natsoulas Gallery, Julie Weitz, Malik Seneferu, Rebeca García-Gonzalez, Richard Diebenkorn Foundation, The Richtik Salmi Family, and Susie Hodges.