The Sanchez Art Center is a

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

arts organization located in Pacifica, California. It was formed in 1996 by local artists and community members.

History

The Sanchez Art Center was founded in 1996 by artists and residents of Pacifica. They worked together with the city of Pacifica to lease an abandoned elementary school building which is a part of the larger Pacifica Center for the Arts complex. The Sanchez Art Center has three indoor exhibition spaces, outdoor murals, an arts classroom, and art studio spaces. It is home to the Art Guild of Pacifica. According to their website, the mission of the Sanchez Art Center is to ''create community through art''. PenVoice host, Dani Gasparini, says of the Sanchez "It really is a destination for

San Mateo County San Mateo County ( ), officially the County of San Mateo, is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 764,442. Redwood City, California, Redwood City is th ...

residents." She continues, "There is a real community feel to the Sanchez Art Center hich hasbeen able to build this very professional structure around the community feel, so that anchez Art Centerhas some of the top artists wanting to come and exhibit. . ." Significant artists exhibiting at the Sanchez, many early in their careers, include:

Enrique Chagoya Enrique Chagoya (born 1953) is a Mexican-born American painter, printmaker, and educator. The subject of his artwork is the changing nature of culture. He frequently uses shocking imagery, irony, and Mesoamerican icons to convey his point in his a ...

, Gerald Clarke, Binh Danh, Robert Hudson, Theodora Varnay Jones,

Hung Liu Hung Liu (劉虹) (17 February 1948 – 7 August 2021) was a Chinese Americans, Chinese-born American contemporary artist. She was predominantly a painter, but also worked with mixed-media and site-specific installation and was also one of the ...

, Bernie Lubell & Michael C. McMillen, John Mattos,

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 s ...

, Maria Porges,

Mel Ramos Melvin John Ramos (July 24, 1935 – October 14, 2018) was an American Figurative art, figurative painter, specializing most often in paintings of Nude (art), female nudes, whose work incorporates elements of Realism (arts), realist and abstract ...

, Ward Schumaker,

João De Brito João de Brito (born 1958) is a Portuguese-American artist who has lived in Northern California since 1978, yet he travels extensively throughout California, the U.S. and Europe to paint in oils en plein air and from memory. From age 6, he has obs ...

, M. Louise Stanley,

Inez Storer Inez Mary Romanoff (, formerly Storer; born October 11, 1933), known as Inez Storer, is an American painter and mixed-media artist who creates work in the magical realism genre. Biography Storer was born in Santa Monica, California, on October ...

, Ann Weber, and Wanxin Zhang.

Programming

The Sanchez Art Center hosts several annual juried exhibitions each year. These currently include ''The Left Coast Annual'', which artistic director Jerry Barrish says has close to a thousand submissions for an exhibition with about 70 spots and ''50/50.'' The Center also hosts exhibitions for the Arts Guild of Pacifica as well as other Bay Area arts organizations. Solo exhibitions are produced by guest curators. Notable arts professionals curating exhibitions for the Sanchez Art Center include: René de Guzman; Jack Fischer, Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco;

Betti-Sue Hertz Betti-Sue Hertz is an American art curator and art historian and director of the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University. Education Hertz has a BA from Goddard College and an MFA from Hunter College, City University of New York; she later stud ...

, Director of Visual Arts at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; Susan Hillhouse, Curator, Triton Museum; Karen Kienzle, Curator, de Saisset Museum; Philip Linhares, Chief Curator, Oakland Museum of California; Maria Medua, Director, SFMOMA Artists Gallery; JoAnne Northrup, Katie and Drew Gibson Chief Curator,

San Jose Museum of Art The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum in downtown San Jose, California, United States. Founded in 1969, the museum holds a permanent collection with an emphasis on West Coast artists of the 20th and 21st cent ...

; Jack Rasmussen, Executive Director, di Rosa Preserve; Larry Rinder, Director and Chief Curator of the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive;

Jan Rindfleisch Jan Rindfleisch (1942–2025) was an American artist, educator, author, curator, and community builder. Rindfleisch is known for the programming she initiated and oversaw at the Euphrat Museum of Art; for her book on the history of art communities ...

, Director Emeritus, Euphrat Museum of Art;

Patricia Rodriguez Patricia is a feminine given name of Latin origin. Derived from the Latin word '' patrician'', meaning 'noble', it is the feminine form of the masculine given name Patrick. Another well-known variant is Patrice. According to the US Social Securi ...

, Gallery Director and Curator at the Mission Cultural Center;

Peter Selz Peter Howard Selz (March 27, 1919 – June 21, 2019) was a German-born American art historian and museum director and curator who specialized in German Expressionism. Biography Peter Selz was born in Munich of Jewish parents. In 1936, aged 17, ...

, founding director of the

Berkeley Art Museum The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and film archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director ...

; Don Soker, Don Soker Gallery, San Francisco; and Karen Tsujimoto, Senior Curator,

Oakland Museum of California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

. Educational programming includes art classes in local schools, workshops and summer camps. These have been funded in part by the

California Arts Council The California Arts Council functions as a state agency headquartered in Sacramento, California. Its board comprises eight council members who receive appointments from both the Governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and ...

. The Sanchez Art Center is a host to Santa Cruz County’s Rydell Visual Arts Fellows Awardees’ exhibitions. The 2006 and 2007 awardees were: Beverly Rayner, Hanna Hannah, Robert Larson, William Marino. The exhibition was curated by Susan Hillhouse, Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. The 2008 and 2009 awardees were: William “Skip” Epperson, Terri Garland, Felicia Rice, and Daniella Woolf. The exhibition was curated by Susan Hillhouse, Curator of Exhibitions and Collections, Museum of Art & History @ the McPherson Center, Santa Cruz. The 2010 and 2011 Rydell Fellowship award winners were: Andrea Borsuk, Tim Craighead, Victoria May, and Andy Ruble. The exhibition was curated by Susan Hillhouse, Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. The 2014 and 2015 Rydell Visual Art Fellows were: Jody Alexander,

Jim Denevan James F. Denevan (born 27 June 1961 in Santa Clara County, California) is an American artist who creates temporary land art. He is also the founder of ''Outstanding in the Field'', a traveling farm dinner series. Biography The passion for san ...

, and

Elizabeth Stephens Elizabeth M. "Beth" Stephens (born November 18, 1960) is an American filmmaker, artist, sculptor, photographer, professor and two time Chair of the Art Department at UC Santa Cruz. Stephens, who describes herself as " ecosexual", collaborates wi ...

. The exhibition was curated by Susan Hillhouse, Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. The Sanchez Art Center achieved a

Office of Sustainability ''Community Resilience Grant'' for ''See Change, Creating space for fear free conversation about sea level rise,'' a series of community engagement projects and exhibitions scheduled for early 2021. In 2021 the Art Center hosted ''Extraction: Response to the Changing World Environment'' by the

California Society of Printmakers The California Society of Printmakers (CSP) is the oldest continuously operating association of printmakers and friends of printmakers in the United States. CSP is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization with an international membership of print ...

, an exhibition which was part of the CODEX Foundation's larger ''Extraction: art on the edge of the abyss'' project.

Pacifica Center for the Arts

The ''Pacifica Center for the Arts'' at 1220 Linda Mar Blvd, were former Sanchez Elementary School buildings, scheduled for demolition, near

Sánchez Adobe Park The Sánchez Adobe Park, home to the Sánchez Adobe, is located in Pacifica, California, at 1000 Linda Mar Boulevard, on the north bank of San Pedro Creek, approximately from the Pacific Ocean in Linda Mar Valley. The county park, established ...

. It includes these organizations: * ''Sanchez Art Center'', galleries and studios, a non-profit organization * ''Pacifica Performances'', performing arts, in the former school's multi-purpose room * ''Art Guild of Pacifica'', membership artwork exhibition galleries and art book library * ''Stephen Johnson Photography'', retail photographic gallery

References

External links

Official website
{{Bay Area Arts Organizations, state=collapsed 501(c)(3) organizations 1996 establishments in California Art museums and galleries in California Arts organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area Non-profit organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area Pacifica, California Arts organizations established in 1996