SBMA Online

Welcome back to SBMA! Advance ticketing reservations are highly recommended and guarantee your entry time.

All skill levels are invited to experience the tradition of sketching from original works of art in current exhibitions. Museum Teaching Artists provide general guidance and all materials.

Join us for a close examination of artworks from across the ages and cultures and a series of unexpected discoveries about the almost alchemical processes of transformation inherent to bronze. This talk will reflect the interdisciplinary, collaborative work involved in the technical study of bronzes and their preservation.

Francesca G. Bewer is the Research Curator for Conservation and Technical Studies Programs at the Harvard Art Museums with expertise in bronze sculpture and on the history of conservation.

Ticket Cost:
Virtual Experience via Zoom: FREE

Celebrate the season with the whole family at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art!

Enjoy Member-only time in the newly renovated Museum with holiday art activities, music, and storytelling in the galleries, and tasty treats to go.

Ticket Cost:
SBMA Member: FREE

Erik Risser
Associate Conservator of Antiquities, J. Paul Getty Museum

In advance of the international loan exhibition Buried by Vesuvius: Treasures from the Villa dei Papiri at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles (26 June – 28 October 2019), the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (MANN) generously lent the bronze statue of a Drunken Satyr for study, analysis, and conservation. Discovered in the outer peristyle garden of the ancient Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum on July 10, 1754, and restored in 1759 at the Royal Foundry at Portici, the statue was praised as one of the most beautiful bronze statues to survive from antiquity by J.J. Winckelmann and other significant personages. This presentation provides an overview of the findings from study and analysis that shed greater light on the techniques of ancient manufacture and the alteration and state of preservation of the sculptural composition at the time of recovery in the 18th century. The discussion also focuses on the extent and nature of the initial and subsequent restorations identified and their ramifications to the appearance and, by extension, the interpretation of the figure. These collective findings allowed for a more comprehensive understanding of the Drunken Satyr and the development and implementation of an extensive and unprecedented conservation treatment program that will also be summarized.

This event is in person at Santa Barbara Museum of Art's Mary Craig Auditorium.

Ticket Cost:
SBMA Member (Museum Circles): FREE
SBMA Member (Enthusiast and below): $10.00
General Admission: $15.00
Student (Valid student ID required): FREE

In a conversation and reading, Emily Rapp Black, award-winning author of Poster Child: A Memoir and The Still Point of the Turning World, a New York Times bestseller, explores art and disability in her most recent book Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg. With elegance, tenderness, and zero sentimentality, she deconstructs the mythologies of words like bravery and resilience and recognizes in Kahlo a twin at the art of creating to silence pain. Joining her is colleague Alex Espinoza, Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair of Creative Writing at UC Riverside and author of novels Still Water Saints and The Five Acts of Diego Léon, and the recent nonfiction book Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime.

Purchase your copy of Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg at the Museum Store, both in-person and online.

Purchase Book

This event is in person at Santa Barbara Museum of Art's Mary Craig Auditorium.

Ticket Cost:
SBMA Member: $5.00
Non-Member: $10.00