SBMA’s ‘Impressionist Revolution’

Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Executive Director and CEO Amada Cruz is understandably proud of the museum’s current exhibition. The Impressionist Revolution: Monet to Matisse traces the origins of the independent artist collective known as the Impressionists via a rich array of paintings, including exquisite examples by very famous artists, including Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, Mondrian and Munch. The show was organized by the Dallas Museum of Art, culled from its own exceptional holdings, to mark the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition. SBMA is the only venue in the Western U.S. to present the major exhibition on its premises, quite the coup for a city as small as ours. 

“It highlights their extraordinary collection of French Impressionist works, and we are really pleased to be presenting it as the only West coast venue,” Cruz said. “Up and down the west coast, anybody who wants to see it has to come here. It’s probably the closest thing to a blockbuster you can have these days. Who doesn’t love French Impressionism? There’s been such a buzz in the galleries, with people very excited about this exhibition and the opportunity to see this really great collection in such a small town.” 

But it wasn’t serendipity that landed the enviable exhibition in our environs. It was Cruz’s connections. 

“The art museum world is a small community,” she explained. “Relationships are all based on trust. The former director of the Dallas Museum of Art is a friend, and our former curator of photography once worked there. There were some pretty strong connections.”

The exhibit made sense for Santa Barbara, not least because the city’s nickname is the American Riviera, a fact not lost on Cruz, who has now been in her position for two years.

“There’s a Manet painting in the collection that is so beautiful, and it looks like Santa Barbara,” she said. 

But Cruz is equally pleased with how SBMA decided to present The Impressionist Revolution in tandem with a show that comes from the museum’s own impressive collection. Encore: 19th Century French Art from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art boasts more than 40 works – 19th-century paintings and photographs – in an exhibition that takes visitors on a virtual tour of Parisian sites such as Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower, not to mention the famed French Riviera, the cliffs of Normandy, lush rural farms in the countryside, and to the places the artists traveled, including London, the Netherlands, and Germany. The idea was to both recreate the milieu of these artists and reveal the breadth and importance of SBMA’s vast holdings.

“It was a perfect way to focus on our own extraordinary collection of French 19th century work, which incidentally includes four really great Monet paintings,” Cruz crowed. “It also provides context for the works from Dallas because you are immediately placed in Paris as something of a trip around the city and other areas where French impressionism went. There are posters from the cafés and the nightclubs and Montmartre. The photographs actually document
the building of the city. It’s wonderful to be able to make connections between our collection and collections from other museums. It’s a really great partnership between the two exhibitions.”

Beyond the compelling exhibitions, Cruz & Co. have also been working behind the scenes to strengthen SBMA’s commitment to its mission and continue to make the museum as accessible as possible. To that end, locals from the tri-county area receive free admission every second Sunday of the month, while 1st Thursdays art walk evenings remain free for everyone. Under Cruz’s stewardship, the museum has also vastly scaled back the museum store, exchanging its storefront space to enhance SBMA’s education programming, which serves more than 20,000 people annually. 

“Our mission is to integrate art into the lives of people, with one of the core areas being education,” she said. “It [education center] was offsite in a McCormick House which is about eight blocks away. Now the store is part of the education department. The kids are on site. They can go from a workshop up into the galleries with their teachers and our teaching artists and make connections between what they see in the galleries and the art they’re making downstairs. It activates the entire museum, because visitors get to see them having fun. It’s much better to have everything happening in this one building.” 

Of course, all of these endeavors, including the show from Dallas, take a lot of funding. Beyond foundations and philanthropists, the museum requires support from the community to continue to undertake such expensive exhibitions. 

“In my mind, it’s almost a test because this [show] was quite a heavy lift for us and we need to have people pay to come in so that we can actually cover our costs at the minimum,” Cruz said. “If this community really wants this kind of show – and it looks like they do – then we need them to support it.”

Visitors over the holidays should also help, as the exhibits stay up through January 25. Meanwhile, those who want to go a step beyond can show they care by becoming members, Cruz said. 

“It’s a great way to support this beloved Santa Barbara institution,” she said. “It’s not just something transactional like buying a ticket to see the one exhibition. It’s really about supporting culture in the city.”  

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