Past Exhibitions

Presented in celebration of the Long Beach Museum of Art’s 70th anniversary, California Designed 2020 at LBMA Downtown, is a complementary exhibition to CA Designed 1955 currently on view at the Museum’s Ocean Boulevard campus. Co-curated by designer Eric Trine…

In 1955, the Long Beach Museum of Art (then Municipal Art Center) presented California Designed, an exhibition of 325 furnishings and accessories representative of the best typically California solution to problems in design and workmanship. Curated by Director Samuel Heavenrich and…

In 2020, the Long Beach Museum of Art celebrates 70 years of art programs in the community. Since its inception, the Museum—at first as the Municipal Art Center—collected and exhibited contemporary art in all media. Women artists were included in…

Each year, the Education Department collaborates with Christine Whipp, the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) art curriculum leader to coordinate three exhibitions of elementary, middle and high school work in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibition cycle, for the Toyota…

Casting Nets alludes to warp and weft, the two basic components used in weaving to turn thread or yarn into fabric: an organic, flexible, ever expanding matrix with points of contact and connection. Daniel Callis produced the majority of these works…

LBMA Downtown is pleased to present this inaugural exhibition featuring 35 Long Beach artists from the Museum’s Permanent Collection. Each work is a diverse contribution in celebration of Long Beach and the opening of the Museum’s downtown galleries and artist…

Living and working in Southern California, Adam Harrison has built a practice that redefines traditional methods of portraying a physical space on canvas. Harrison reimagines conventional landscape painting approaches with a unique amalgamation of working from both memory and real-life…

Today, artists who work in the Book Arts create fine and design bindings, fine press and letterpress editions, calligraphy, broadsides, handmade paper, and artist books. Visitors to The Artful Book will see outstanding contemporary examples of the Book Arts created by members…

Textile art has long been used for practical, ornate and expressive means – a cultural vessel for storytelling in the absence of written word. Fiber artists working with the medium continue to push boundaries, redefining the dialogue between traditional and…

The Long Beach Museum of Art’s Education Staff visited several classrooms in Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD), asking students to reflect on diversity and friendship. 2nd and 3rd grade students created works of art that showed differences made their…

During the span of a near 50-year career, American photographer and filmmaker Robert Henry Mizer (b.1922 – d. 1992), universally known as Bob, has been pushing boundaries in both subject matter and medium. Famed for his groundbreaking publication, Physique Pictorial, which launched…

This May, the Long Beach Museum of Art presents a large-scale retrospective of the work of American painter Patrick Angus (1953 – 1992). The expansive exhibition of paintings and works on paper allows intimate insights into the development of Angus’s…

This year’s students were asked to reflect on food beyond what nourishes and sustains us, as what and how we consume inherently helps establish our identities, social boundaries and cultural diversities. Food is not simply consumed but experienced – each…

Patrick Dougherty debuts a site-specific willow installation at the Long Beach Museum of Art. Working together with local volunteers, his son Sam, the Museum Staff and Docents, the artist intricately weaves and assembles hundreds of harvested willow saplings on-site to…

As colors, shapes, and forms appear in flux, the illusion of space persists throughout the lyrical work of Marie Thibeault. Organized by the Long Beach Museum of Art, Conveyance: Marie Thibeault debuts the artist’s newly commissioned large-scale oil paintings. Living…

The iconic imageries depicted in the work of Sandow Birk emerge as figments of the past, seemingly forgotten series of historical events, or aspects of American contemporary life that reflect on today’s societal concerns. The Long Beach Museum of Art…

American photographer, LeRoy Grannis documented the evolution of surfing from its humble beginnings that grew into a global sport and lifestyle, witnessing first-hand its epochal development in the history of American surf culture. Cult to Culture: Photographs by LeRoy Grannis…

Since moving to the United States from Oaxaca, Mexico, Narsiso Martinez (B. 1977) immersed himself in pursuing an education by first enrolling in English Language courses and later getting his GED. It was not until taking an art history class…

The exhibition, Fragile Thoughts, is a 25 year survey representing Jane Brucker’s exploration of personal and collective history, mortality and fragility. A hallmark of Brucker’s work is the combining of found objects and heirlooms with other materials – textiles, wood, glass, paper, text,…

Daywork: Portraits, the first comprehensive exhibition of one of the most celebrated series of portrait paintings by Los Angeles-based artist, John Sonsini, surveys a compelling body of work that captures the personalities and characteristics of Latino day laborers living in…

The Long Beach Museum of Art (LBMA) presents Vitality and Verve III: Transforming the Urban Landscape, an exhibition dedicated to showcasing new works by artists of the New Contemporary Art Movement. Presented in curatorial collaboration with Los Angeles’ Thinkspace Projects and…

This exhibition of drawings by Henri Matisse showcases the mastery of draftsmanship by two of the most significant artists of the twentieth century: Henri Matisse (1869-1954) and Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015). Curated by Kelly in 2014, the exhibition speaks to his…