Nancy Genn
American (b. 1929)
Biography
Post War California artist, Nancy Genn studied at the California School of Fine Arts (now The San Francisco Art Institute) and University of California, Berkeley (1947 – 1949).
Note from the Artist:
Butterflies in Islamic iconography represent the soul. That is the inspiration for my loose line drawings in the Opus and Genesis Series. Since 2006 I’ve explored this as an image based on its spiritual presence. My medium for this series has been both ceramic tile and works on paper.
Being native San Franciscan, the environment of water and fog is central to my life and work. The preservation of our natural environment greatly concerned my parents and family. I always enjoyed swimming in Pacific and currently at Tomales Bay. Water in all its forms has always been a central source of imagery in my work and centering presence in my life. The currents and waves are the source of my calligraphic line is water – both in painting and in sculpture.
The importance of line in my work also comes from my love of the written word. In 1965, my mother brought me a book written in Farsi (ancient Persian) from her travels in Iran. My own travels in Uzbekistan, Yemen, and Asia immersed me in different environments of calligraphy that lead to a new development of the open structure and line in my imagery.
Selected exhibitions
California Palace of Legion of Honor
San Francisco Museum of Art
Space Mater Gallery, Consonance, Todi, Italy
Museo di Ca’ Pesaro, Galleria Internazionale d’ Arte Moderna, Venice, Italy
Architecture from Within, Palazzo Ferro Fini, Venice, IT
Carl Cherry Center for the Arts, Carmel, CA
Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA curated by Jacquelin Pillar
Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA curated by Nancy White
Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA
Michael Petronko Gallery, New York, NY
Ann Reed Gallery, Sun Valley, Idaho
Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Ivory/Kimpton Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Kala Institute Gallery, Berkeley, CA
Linda Farris Gallery, Seattle, WA
Inoue Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Annely Juda Fine Art, London, England
William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Los Angeles Institute for Contemporary Art, LA, CA
M. H. De Young Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
Selected Collections
Achenbauch Foundation, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA
American Craft Museum, New York, NY
Auckland Museum, Aukland, New Zealand
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
Fondazione Georgio Cini, Venice, Italy
International Center of Aesthetic Research, Italy
Los Angeles County Museum, CA
Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Museo di Ca’ Pesaro, Venice, Italy
National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC
The Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA
Palazzo Ferro Fini, Venice, Italy
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
San Francisco Museum of Art, CA
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MI
