Arcadia  |  Living Sculpture

Saturday, October 1  |  7-9pm

Tickets  |  $65 NUMU Members, $75 General

Join NUMU and San Francisco-based floral artist Flower Couture for our fall fundraiser. Celebrate the beauty of impermanence with an evening of music, food, wine, and performance art. Immerse yourself in a floral environment, witness the creation of artwork in this mortal medium, and be part of a multi-media installation. Proceeds will provide support for exhibitions and education programming. Made possible in part by Silicon Valley Creates. 

Normandy and French Landscapes through the eyes of the Impressionists with Celine Glon

Thursday, September 29  |  7pm - 8pm  |  $10 Members, $15 Non-Members

This lecture is a voyage to Normandy, which was for most impressionist artists their birthplace, and home. Its proximity to Paris together with the burgeoning number of fashionable seaside resorts like Honfleur, Deauville or Trouville along its coast meant that artists came to the region by train and stayed, producing an artistic legacy which would be hard to rival anywhere.

Discover painters such as Eugene Boudin and his influence Claude Monet’s work upon introducing the latter to natural light. Impressionist painters used this natural light to concentrate on landscapes, towns and scenes of daily life. 

Finally, travel to Giverny and discover where Claude Monet lived and gardened. Claude Monet was widely considered to be one the best-known Impressionists and certainly a major character in Normandy’s artistic heritage. Giverny became the perfect place for quiet reflection and then spent the rest of his days capturing it in oils.

Celine Glon is the founder and CEO of Et Voila Paris which offers customized tours of France with expert guides. She has collaborated with the Dallas Museum of Art to give a series of lectures and has taught diverse cultural classes to adults at Southern Methodist University Continuing Education Programs. Celine is involved with the Silicon Valley French Alliance through which she gives lectures on a variety of French cultural subjects. 

Funding for this program provided by: Silicon Valley Creates and The Borgenicht Foundation. 

"A True Poet in Paint": Arthur F. Mathews and the California Decorative Mythography

Thursday, September 8  |  7-8pm  |  $15 Non Members, $10 Members

The histories of epic poetry and pastoral landscape painting converge in this lecture on California artist Arthur Frank Mathews (1860-1945) and his career as a leading painter, writer, and art educator in San Francisco at the turn of the nineteenth century. The lecture focuses on Mathews's interest in mythology and considers what may have informed his "California Decorative" visions of California as Arcadia.  

Mary Okin is a scholar of American art specializing in the social history of California painting and the rise of women artists during the Gilded Age. Her master's thesis at San Jose State University, "Uncovering 'New Man' Feminism: Arthur F. Mathews at the San Francisco School of Design, 1890-1896," engages in the first feminist reading of Mathews and his contributions to the rise of women artists in California. After presenting at the New Museum Los Gatos, Mary will be continuing her study of American art at UC Santa Barbara, where she will join a new cohort of doctoral students in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture this fall. In her scholarship, Mary aims to complicate our understanding of the development of California painting in a regional, national, and international context, and to explore California's inherited and distinct aesthetic and cultural traditions.

Funding for this program provided by: Silicon Valley Creates and The Borgenicht Foundation. 

Guided Meditation and Mindful Movement with Cindy Walker

Wednesday, August 31  |  12:30 - 1:30pm  |  $15 Pre-Registration until August 28, $20 Drop-In

Museums are generally quiet, peaceful places, ideal for contemplation and creative observation. NUMU would like to invite you to slow down, stop, observe, take some deep breaths and reflect… experience a type of meditation called "slow looking". We invite you to join us in a unique one hour meditation and mindful movement session within the NUMU art exhibit Et in Arcadia Ego, led by meditation and yoga instructor Cindy Walker, e-RTY. 

Please wear comfortable clothing and bring a mat or towel to sit upon. Registration includes museum admission to all exhibits and meditation session. 

Cindy Walker has twenty-five years experience teaching yoga and meditation. She holds a B.A. in Movement Therapy & Psychology, and the Yoga Alliance - 500 eRYT certification. She currently teaches at YogaSource - Los Gatos, Courtside and Healthstyle Integrative Medical Center.  http://www.yogaandtheartofliving.com/

Funding for this program provided by: Silicon Valley Creates and the Borgenicht Foundation.

Et in Arcadia Ego  |  A Panel Discussion

Thursday, August 11  |  7-8pm  |  $15 Non Members, $10 Members

Our current exhibition Et in Arcadia ego, explores the timeless myth of Arcadia as it has been represented by artists and writers, employing concepts such as idealized landscapes, liminal figures, and a contemplation of mortality. Join our panel of Et in Arcadia Ego exhibiting artists, David Ligare, Stephanie Peek, Holly Lane, and Seamus Conley as they discuss these themes in their work. The panel will be moderated by our Executive Director Lisa Coscino and our Art Curator Marianne McGrath. 

Funding for this program provided by: Silicon Valley Creates and The Borgenight Foundation.