A Collection of Wonderful Things: Beth Van Hoesen
Beth Van Hoesen (1926–2010) was born in Boise, Idaho. In 1944, she enrolled at Stanford University to study fine arts, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1948. After graduating from Stanford, she traveled to France and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Fontainbleau in 1948 and at the Academie Julian and Academie de la Grand Chaumiere in Paris from 1948 to 1950. In 1951, she enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts, where David Park and Clyfford Still were among her influential teachers.
At CSFA, she met artist and designer Mark Adams, and they married in 1953. In 1955, she traveled with Adams to St. Cére-Aubusson, France, where Adams had an apprenticeship with tapestry artist Jean Lurçat. In 1959, Van Hoesen and Adams purchased a 1910 firehouse in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood where they established their studios and lived for the next 46 years. For many years, Van Hoesen and Adams hosted a weekly figure drawing and portraiture group at the Firehouse studio, joined by artists Wayne Thiebaud, Gordon Cook, Theophilus Brown, and others.
Works by Beth Van Hoesen are in the collections of more than 150 museums, including the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Art Institute of Chicago; Brooklyn Museum; Racine Art Museum, El Paso Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; J. P. Morgan Library, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena; The Oakland Museum; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; San Jose Museum of Art; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Stanford University Libraries; University of California, Berkeley Art Museum; University of Idaho, Moscow; University Museums, Iowa State University, Ames; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and other institutions. The Portland Art Museum, Oregon, is the repository for Beth Van Hoesen's print archive.
A Collection of Wonderful Things: Beth Van Hoesen features 72 prints from 1952 through 1972 and is illustrated in color and black and white.
Hardcover
151 pages
RAM MEMBER PRICE: $31.50
