Anthony Meier Fine Arts

On view from 31 January through 17 March 2023, "In the Shadow of Mt. Tam" will feature historic works by artists such as Etel Adnan, who spent a finite but critically important time in Marin County––and who eventually went on to establish themselves within the cannons of art history. Artists include Etel Adnan, JB Blunk, Jess Collins, Jay DeFeo, Robert Duncan, Gordon Onslow Ford, Luchita Hurtado, David Ireland, Lee Mullican, Bruce Nauman, Wolfgang Paalen, Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, Lawrence Weiner, William T. Wiley, and Rick Yoshimoto. The exhibition will thread together the allure of Marin’s distinctive natural environment and Mt. Tam itself, as well as the impact of community and place on these artist’s burgeoning practices. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog featuring an essay by art historian Michael Auping.

Anthony Meier Fine Arts is pleased to present a solo exhibition of never-before-seen work by jazz musician and painter Claude Lawrence. On view from 24 May – 24 June 2022, the exhibition showcases his masterful array of paintings that range from fully abstract to subtly figurative. These works created over the past seven years are the artist’s first presentation with a major commercial gallery and mark his debut on the West Coast. Lawrence grew up in Chicago and attended an arts and music school alongside composer Anthony Braxton and drummer Jack DeJohnette. In the mid 1960s he moved to New York and toured the United States as a saxophonist for the next 20 years. During his time in New York, Lawrence became a fixture of the Downtown Loft Jazz scene and was enmeshed in a milieu of the most notable artists and musicians of the day - he took lessons with Ornette Colman, encountered Frank Bowling and Edvins Strautmanis at Peter Bradley's Firehouse on Lafayette Street and forged longtime friendships with Jack Whitten and Joe Overstreet. These relationships informed Lawrence’s perspective not only on contemporary art and music but on the potential political resonances of these creative modes of expression. He recalls that when discussing Norman Lewis with Jack Whitten, the latter observed how significant it was for an African-American artist to gain recognition for anything other than figurative work, especially since figuration was more likely to be regarded as political than abstraction. Even though Lawrence’s compositions have almost always obviated referential imagery, he found that his work could be mobilized to enact meaningful social change. This crossover between jazz and abstraction can also be seen in Lawrence’s energized compositions of bold colors and impassioned brushstrokes. Art historian Andrianna Campbell attests to the depth of influence that Lawrence’s musical career had on his painting and observed that his work often operates “as a fusion of improvisation and subject matter governed by memory akin to the way that a jazz musician follows the established chord progressions and recycles it to render it continually new.”

Anthony Meier Fine Arts is pleased to announce "Saif Azzuz: Huem-chor O’ weych-pues (Welcome to where the rivers meet)", the artist’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, on view from 17 March – 22 April 2022. Working with a variety of natural materials and incorporating traditional Yurok art-making techniques, Azzuz confronts the ongoing effects of colonialism. The title of the exhibition takes its name from a greeting wall in Weitchpec, CA where the Yurok community resides. To date, the privatization of stolen land is the largest burden on all Indigenous peoples trying to steward their ancestral lands. Through constructing a sense of home within the gallery, Azzuz subverts the inaccessibility faced by his people for generations, subsequently showcasing the resilience of Yurok culture and the importance of personal connection with the land. Azzuz’s work responds to the impact of colonization, dams and the privatization of nature on the California landscape. Traditional ecological knowledge––different ways Indigenous communities have interacted with the land since time immemorial –– is at the core of the artist’s work, and is evident through a series of “remembered landscapes,” rubbing paintings, and sculptures that populate the gallery space. Made at different locations throughout present-day Weitchpec, the rubbing paintings are created from reliefs that are found on bridges or pieces of concrete that represent a different pattern and story for the Yurok tribe. In his paintings, Azzuz repurposes the color palettes from the drought and fire maps from California in 2021 to create surreal landscapes that are full and alive, that press their power up to the very edges of the canvas, resisting their frames. About Saif Azzuz: Saif Azzuz (b. 1987) is a Libyan-Yurok artist who resides in Pacifica, CA. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Painting and Drawing from the California College of the Arts in 2013. Azzuz has exhibited widely in the Bay Area, including an upcoming solo exhibition at Anthony Meier Fine Arts in March of 2022 and has had solo exhibitions at pt.2 gallery, Adobe Books, Ever Gold [Projects], NIAD, Rule Gallery and 1599dt Gallery. Azzuz is a 2022 SFMOMA SECA Award finalist and has participated in the Clarion Alley Mural Project and the Facebook Artist in Residence program.

Appointment only. No opening reception.

"Leonardo Drew: Works on Paper"

By appointment only

No opening reception

26 August - 1 October 2021

Anthony Meier Fine Arts is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by San Francisco-based artist Erica Deeman (b. 1977, Nottingham, UK). In her second solo exhibition at the gallery, entitled "Familiar Stranger" (a reference to Stuart Hall’s Autobiography, "Familiar Stranger: A Life Between Two Islands"), Deeman forges a pathway between photography and sculpture, sharing 15 intimate self-portraits rendered in Cassius Obsidian clay. In this new series, Deeman continues her reflections on diasporic and transnational movements, Black permanence and the nuance of cultural identity. In "Familiar Stranger", Deeman turns the camera on herself for the first time creating portraits and processes that explore transfiguration and the overlapping and fluidity of identity. Black and white photographs are rendered into unique, abstracted, hand-made self-portraits in clay with the aid of 3D-printing techniques. For Deeman, the clay not only represents the land but a sense of belonging. The black clay sculptures reflect back contrast and detail in its darkness - a visible tension between time, technology, and the creative technique.

Anthony Meier Fine Arts is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by San Francisco painter Richard Hoblock. Hoblock’s second solo exhibition at the gallery features a body of work rich in layered abstraction, juxtaposing bold and pastel hues. Working with both a paint brush and pallete knife, Hoblock frames broad, curving strokes with thick, built-up oil paint. Deep excavations reveal rich tones behind the topcoat; the displaced paint remains on the surface in a nod to history’s abstract expressionists. Hoblock received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1978 from the University New Hampshire, Durham, NH and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in 1998 from the University of California, Los Angeles, CA. He has had solo exhibitions at 295 Artspace, Orient, NY; Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA; Kim Light Lightbox Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; The Los Angeles Billboard Project, Los Angeles, CA, and Chimento Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA. His work is in the collection of University of California’s Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.