SONOMA, CA.- The Sonoma Valley Museum of Art is presenting a retrospective of the work of Nancy Genn, a Berkeley-based artist, whose long career explores the history of post-war American art in the fields of gestural abstraction and abstract expressionism. Nancy Genn: The Nature of Being opened on Saturday, May 10, and runs through September 7, 2025.

“I have known Nancy and her work for over twenty years. I am thankful that our paths converged again, and that we could work together to bring Nancy Genn: The Nature of Being to Sonoma Valley Museum of Art,” writes SVMA Executive Director & Chief Curator, Linda Keaton. “Nancy continues to refine and develop both process and expression. Her natural positivity and curiosity about the world around her is infectious.”

Genn’s work addresses cross-cultural connections. She is known for working in various media, including paintings, bronze sculpture, printmaking, and notably, handmade paper rooted in the Japanese washi papermaking tradition. Influenced by her extensive travels, Asian craft aesthetics, and spiritual traditions, her work features nature’s effects of light, landscape, and water, along with the human presence represented by architectural motifs and functional objects.

Scott A. Shields, Ph.D, Ted and Melza Barr Chief Curator and Associate Director, Crocker Art Museum, describes Genn’s work: “Squeezing paint directly onto her canvases and scraping it with the end of her brush, her paint application and compositions are at once lyrical and vigorous, her aesthetic visceral, which applies as much to her sculpture as to her painting”.

Nancy Genn’s work can be found in distinguished collections such as the Achenbach Foundation, SF, CA; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; American Craft Museum, New York, NY; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; and Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.

Throughout the exhibition, SVMA will offer a range of public programs for adults and young people, including a talk with the artist and co-curators on Saturday, June 7 at 3 PM. Please see svma.org for more information on upcoming programs.

Linda Keaton and Margie Maynard co-curated this exhibition. A 45-page exhibition catalogue, Nancy Genn: The Nature of Being, with essays by Linda Keaton, Scott A. Shields, Ph.D., and Jan Wurm, is available.