Roland Conrad Petersen (born 1926) is a Danish-born American painter, printmaker, and professor. His career spans over 50 years, primarily in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

and is perhaps best-known for his "Picnic series" (a yearly event at UC Davis) beginning in 1959 to today. He is part of the

Bay Area Figurative Movement The Bay Area Figurative Movement (also known as the Bay Area Figurative School, Bay Area Figurative Art, Bay Area Figuration, and similar variations) was a mid-20th Century art movement made up of a group of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area wh ...

Early life and education

Petersen was born 1926 in

Endelave Endelave is a Danish island in the Kattegat, north of Odense, off the coast of Funen, and west of Samsø. The island covers an area of and has 185 inhabitants. Nature and Protected areas Endelave and its surrounding seaside is important for man ...

, Denmark. He received a B.A. in 1949 and M.A. degree in 1950 from the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

(UC Berkeley), where he studied under

Chiura Obata was a well-known Japanese-American artist and popular art teacher. A self-described "roughneck", Obata went to the United States in 1903, at age 17. After initially working as an illustrator and commercial decorator, he had a successful career a ...

, John Haley, and Glen Wessels. He continued his studies at California School of Fine Arts (now known as

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximatel ...

), the

Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

School of Fine Arts in Provincetown (from 1950 to 1951),

California College of Arts and Crafts California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

(1952 to 1954), and

Atelier 17 Atelier 17 was an art school and studio that was influential in the teaching and promotion of printmaking in the 20th century. Originally located in Paris, the studio relocated to New York during the years surrounding World War II. It moved back t ...

with

Stanley Hayter Stanley William Hayter (27 December 1901 – 4 May 1988) was an English painter and printmaker associated in the 1930s with surrealism and from 1940 onward with abstract expressionism. Regarded as one of the most significant printmakers of th ...

(from 1963, and 1970 to 1971). After graduation college in 1950, Petersen made his way east to study with Hans Hoffman School of Fine Arts in Provincetown. Roland would return again the following summer of 1951 after a sojourn in Europe studying for six months with the printmaker

Stanley William Hayter Stanley William Hayter (27 December 1901 – 4 May 1988) was an English painter and printmaker associated in the 1930s with surrealism and from 1940 onward with abstract expressionism. Regarded as one of the most significant printmakers of th ...

. Vestiges of Hofmann's approach, including his conviction that "every deep artistic expression is a product of a conscious feeling for reality," are present in Petersen's works of the early 1950s. It was Hoffman's teaching that showed Petersen how to incorporate "recognizable, everyday objects into this theory of opposition push/pull" a theory, which stresses the applying and combining of opposing forces in art.

Teaching and career

He taught painting at

Washington State University Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant uni ...

from 1956 to 1992; and painting and printmaking at

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

from 1956 to 1991. He won a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1963; and a

Fulbright Fellowship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

to France in 1970. In March 2010, Petersen's work was the subject of a major retrospective ("Roland Petersen: 50 Years of Painting") held at the Monterey Museum of Art in Monterey, California. Petersen, his daughter, and his wife, the photographer Caryl Ritter, were present. In 2016 a one man show In Perspective was held at his current gallery ''The Studio Shop Gallery'' in Burlingame,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

, and again on September 22 – October 15, 2017—the show is called Six Decades of Painting—resulting in a bound book of Petersen's work under the same title. Roland Petersen was a part of the

—a mid-20th Century art movement made up of a group of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area who abandoned working in the prevailing style of Abstract Expressionism in favor of a return to figuration in painting during the 1950s and onward into the 1960s. The "Bridge Generation" (the second of three generations) included the artists Roland Petersen,

Nathan Oliveira Nathan Oliveira (December 19, 1928 – November 13, 2010) was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor, born in Oakland, California to immigrant Portuguese parents. Since the late 1950s, Oliveira has been the subject of nearly one hundred ...

, Theophilus Brown,

Paul Wonner Paul John Wonner (April 24, 1920April 23, 2008) was an American artist best known for his still-life paintings done in an abstract expressionist style. Born in Tucson, Arizona, he received a B.A. in 1952, an M.A. in 1953, and an M.L.S. in 1955 ...

, John Hultberg, and

Frank Lobdell Frank Lobdell (1921 - 2013) was an American painter, often associated with the Bay Area Figurative Movement and Bay Area Abstract Expressionism. Life and career Frank Lobdell was born on August 23, 1921 in Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Miss ...

Collections

* Davis Arts Center, Davis, California * Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis, California *

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was desi ...

, Washington, D.C. *

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the F ...

, (Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts), San Francisco, California * Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia *

Crocker Art Museum The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest art museum in the Western United States, located in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1885, the museum holds one of the premier collections of Californian art. The collection includes American works dating f ...

, Sacramento, California * University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada * Wesleyan University School of Art, Bloomington, Illinois * Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, California *

Sacramento City College Sacramento City College (SCC) is a public community college in Sacramento, California. SCC is part of the Los Rios Community College District and had an enrollment of 25,307 in 2009. It is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community ...

, Sacramento, California * Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, San Diego, California *

Monterey Museum of Art The Monterey Museum of Art (MMA) an art museum located in Monterey, California. It was founded in 1959 as a chapter of the American Federation of Arts. The Monterey Museum of Art collects, preserves, and interprets the art of California from the ...

, Monterey, California * Musée Municipal, Brest,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

* Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California * Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California *

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin F ...

, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania * Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona *

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

(SFMoMA), San Francisco, California *

De Young Museum The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the Legion of Ho ...

, San Francisco, California * Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California *

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...

(MoMA), New York City, New York *

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

, New York City, New York

Selected solo exhibitions

2017 Roland Petersen: Six Decades of Painting, Studio Shop Gallery, Burlingame, CA 2016 Roland Petersen: In Perspective, Studio Shop Gallery, Burlingame, CA 2015 Works On Paper 1959–1969, Elliott Fouts Gallery, Sacramento, CA 2013 A Journey Through Time, Elliott Fouts Gallery, Sacramento, CA 2008 Roland Petersen: A Natural Order, Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2002 Roland Petersen: Early Paintings 1958-–1969, Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2001 Roland Petersen: Recent Works, John Natsoulas Gallery, Sacramento, CA 1998 Roland Petersen: Recent Works, John Natsoulas Gallery, Sacramento, CA 1998 Endelave Museum, Endelave, Denmark (traveled throughout Denmark) 1995 Roland Petersen: Recent Works, Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco, CA 1993 Roland Petersen: Works on Paper, Harcourts Modern and Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA 1992 Retrospective, University of California, Davis, Richard L. Nelson Gallery, University of California, Davis, CA 1991 Roland Petersen: Works on Paper, Harcourts Modern and Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA 1990 Roland Petersen: Bay Area Paintings of the Sixties, Vanderwoude Tananbaum Gallery, New York, NY 1989 Roland Petersen: Works on Paper, Harcourts Modern and Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA 1987 Roland Petersen—Bay Area Paintings of the Sixties, Vanderwoude/Tananbaum Gallery, New York, NY 1985 Roland Petersen: Encaustic Paintings, Rorick Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1984 Roland Petersen: Selected Monotypes & Watercolors, Smith Andersen Gallery, Palo Alto, CA 1981–83 Roland Petersen: Encaustic Paintings, Rorick Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1980 University of Reading, Reading, England 1979 Brubaker Gallery, Sarasota, FL 1978 Roland Petersen Retrospective, University of California, Davis, Memorial Union Art Gallery, University of California, Davis, CA 1977 Aberbach Fine Arts Gallery, London, England. Kathryn Markel Gallery, New York, NY. University of Reading, Reading, England 1976 20 Year Retrospective of Color Prints by Roland Petersen, Washington State Art Services Program (traveling, organized by the Museum of Art), Pullman, WA 1975 Adele Bednarz Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1973 Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA. Adele Bednarz Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1972 Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ 1970 Adele Bednarz Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1968 M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA 1967 Staempfli Gallery, New York, NY (also 1965, 1962) 1965 Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA 1961 Esther-Robles Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1961 California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA 1954 Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA Selected Group Exhibitions 2016 Out Our Way, Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis, CA 2002 Geometry Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2001 California Printmakers Association: Group Exhibition, Marin Civic Center, San Rafael, CA 1995 Andre Milan Gallery, Sao Paulo, Brazil 1993 Artists Contemporary Gallery, Sacramento, CA Pence Gallery, Davis, CA 1992–93 California Painting, The Essential Modernist Framework, Fine Art, CA State University, Los Angeles, CA; Traveled to University Art Gallery, California State University, San Bernardino, CA 1992 Hall of Pictures, Uman, Russia California Dreamin', Fresno Metropolitan Museum, Fresno, CA 1990 Northern California Figuration, Natsoulas, Novelozo, Davis, CA 1989 Collectors Exhibit, Sacramento City College, Sacramento, CA 1985 Sacramento/Davis Interface, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA 1984–86 Prints U.S.A., First overseas exhibition by the California Society of Printmakers: World Print Council, San Francisco, CA; Traveled to the National Museum, Singapore; National Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand; Amerika Haus, Berlin, Germany; Malmo Konsthall, Malmo, Sweden; Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico 1980 The Collectors Eye, Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Laguna Beach, CA; Traveled to Aberbach Gallery, London, England 1977–78 Atelier 17 Exhibition, Elvehjem Art Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI; traveled to Museum of Art, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Museum of Art, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL; Aberbach Fine Arts Gallery, London, England; Kathryn Markel Gallery, New York, NY 1972 The American Artist and Water Reclamation, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 1971 Four-Person Exhibition, American Cultural Center, Paris, France 1969 The Illinois Biennial, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Champaign, IL 1968 The Humanist Tradition with David Park in Contemporary American Painting, New York School, New York, NY. Four Person Exhibition with David Park, Elmer Bischoff and Joan Brown, Bednarz and Heritage Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1966 Contemporary American Artists in the White House, White House, Washington, DC 1964 Painting and Sculpture Today, Herron Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN 1962 68th Denver Annual, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO 1961 National Watercolor Exhibition, Peoria, IL 1960 First Winter Invitational, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA 1956 San Francisco Art Association Invitational, M.H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA 1955 Second Oil Annual, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA 1954 San Francisco Art Annual, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA 1951 Atelier 17, New York, NY. American Painters, Florence, Italy. Young Painters, Beaux Gallery, Paris, France 1950 National College Exhibition, Andover, MA

References

External links

Studio Shop Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Petersen, Roland 1926 births Living people 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists University of California, Berkeley alumni San Francisco Art Institute alumni California College of the Arts alumni Washington State University faculty University of California, Berkeley faculty University of California, Davis faculty Danish emigrants to the United States 20th-century American printmakers People from Burlingame, California 20th-century American male artists Fulbright alumni