Permanent Exhibitions

September of 1992 marked the opening of the Fresno Art Museum’s Hans Sumpf Gallery of Mexican Art - an opening highlighted by an installation entitled Masterpieces of Mesoamerican Pre-Columbian Ceramics from the Kenneth E. Stratton Collection. The gallery was designed to give the impression of walking into a space similar in feeling to a shaft tomb as most of the ceramic artworks from Kenneth Stratton’s bequest originally came from just such pre-Columbian burial sites. Prompted by Stratton’s gift to the Museum, the Sumpf family contributed the necessary funds to house the collection. Because Hans Sumpf and Kenneth Stratton had been lifelong friends, it is fitting that this gallery honors the life of two remarkable men who cared passionately about their community and the vital culture of our southern neighbors.

The majority of the Stratton collection on display was created before the Europeans entered the New World and represent cultures from the area now known as West Mexico and date from 500 to 2500 years in age. The collection’s strength is evident in the outstanding examples representing Olmec, Tlatilco, Chupícuaro, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Teotihuacan, Veracruz, Oaxaca, and the Lagunillas style. This splendid collection gathered over the years by Kenneth E. Stratton has enabled the Museum to foster a deep appreciation of the rich cultural heritage of the Mexican and Mexican American people.

In the spring of 1995, the Fresno Art Museum introduced its audience to the magnificent pre-Columbian Andean collection assembled by the weaver Janet B. Hughes. Representing regional variations drawn from a number of cultures, the Hughes Collection of Andean Pre-Columbian Art clearly indicates that weaving was one of the earliest forms of artistic expression as well as a means of status identification for the ancient peoples of Peru.

This exhibit includes works from four of the pivotal artists from this group John Haley, Karl Kasten, Erle Loran, and James McCray. They were first referred to as “The Berkeley Abstract Expressionists” in 1937 by Bay Area art critic Alfred Frankenstein.

The primary artistic influence of the 'Berkeley School' group was Hans Hofmann, the German-born painter and teacher who emphasized the abstract qualities of line, color, texture, and space and taught at U.C. Berkeley in 1930 and 1931.

This highly charged group of painters had, by the early 1950's, developed a strong and colorful style of abstract painting, a vivid contrast to the dark style of the San Francisco School of abstract expressionism from the same period.

Beauty of Nature: Meditations on Line, Shape and Form

Oikawa 1939, original colored woodcut. Bakufu Ohno.
Japanese prints by Bakufu Ohno from the 1938 series “Familiar Fishes of Nippon” from the permanent collection. These works were donated to the Museum by the Fresno Ichibana Society and will be accompanied by changing floral displays in the Ichibana style.

Copper & Bronze: Elemental Forms from the Permanent Collection 

Late 20th Century sculpture from FAM’s permanent collection, including works from Robert Cremean, Clement Renzi, Jacques Lipchitz, Claire Falkenstein, and others.