Posted 10 years ago
beaus
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Major Exhibit of the Work of Artist Jean Varda
June 2 - July 13, 2015
Bay Model Visitors' Center
2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito CA 94965
Note: This work is not for sale.
(Note: Bridgeway is the major route through the town of Sausalito, but the Bay Model Visitor's Center is a little bit off the main road and can be missed. If you are lost you can call the Bay Model at (415) 332-3870 and ask for directions.)
Jean Varda, 1893-1971, was at the forefront of the modernist art movement in France and England during the 1920s and 1930s, consorting with Braque, Picasso, Matisse, Ezra Pound, and Dylan Thomas, among others. After moving to the United States in 1939, he formed close friendships with Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Alan Watts, and Maya Angelou. During the late 1940s and early 1950s he taught at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco (now the San Francisco Art Institute). He was the odd man out there, as everyone else was painting in the abstract expressionist style, but his students loved him and he was respected for his well developed theories about art. He spent the last quarter of a century living in an old ferryboat on the Sausalito waterfront, where he created beautiful collages and took friends out on colorful sailboats of his own creation.
Varda has slipped off the radar in recent years. Those who own his work, however, treasure it. Most of the artwork included in the exhibit is from private collections and has never previously been available for public viewing. Most of the work on exhibit was done during the 1950s and 1960s.