Richard Diebenkorn, Untitled, 1968; 17 × 14 inches. Photo by Lydia Chávez

Brian Gross Fine Arts at 248 Utah St. has a small show, Bay Area Figurative Drawing: 1958 to 1968, that will be up until Feb 25.   It is well worth dropping in just to see the 1968 drawing by Richard Diebenkorn who you probably know most for his Ocean Park series.

The drawing comes from his earlier figurative period and, despite depicting a woman sitting in chair, has a wonderful sense of movement. Oh to have $85,000 to blow on a drawing.

Other notables are also in the show including David Park, Elmer Bischoff and William Theophilius Brown.

In the main gallery is a show Ruth Pastine’ Witness, eight large scale oil paintings in which she uses a limited color palette. The works are alluring, but this is tough territory to plumb.

Gallery Hours
Tuesday–Saturday 11–6

Next door at the Catherine Clark Gallery, Deborah Oropollo has a solo show, Bell the Cat that will be up until Feb. 18.  Here, Oropollo explores feminism with photomontage and paint.

The works are intriguing and draw on the Berkeley-based artists earlier use of historical portraiture (Guise,) and fairytale figures (Tail Spin).

Gallery Hours
Tuesday – Saturday 11 – 6pm.
Thursday 11 – 7pm.

Here is our latest update of the Mission Gallery Listings. If we have left anyone off, let us know.

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Founder/Executive Editor. I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019 when I retired. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still there.

As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.

Right now I'm trying to figure out how you make that long-held interest in local news sustainable. The answer continues to elude me.

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