John Natsoulas Gallery

For the past two decades, John Natsoulas has pursued his vision of making fine art accessible in a friendly setting. Although this is a rarity in the gallery world, his dedication to art history, arts education, and the exhibition of regional talent and California artwork has fostered the renown of the John Natsoulas Gallery. The gallery maintains a strong relationship to the University of California, Davis’ Art Department. One of the major roles of the John Natsoulas Center for the Arts is to provide a place for cultural meetings, conferences, and public activities, which create a wonderful community dialogue through a variety of visual, literary and musical events.

John Natsoulas has mobilized considerable support from artists and the Sacramento Valley’s public for humanitarian and educational organizations, and he considers this to be one of the gallery’s greatest accomplishments.

Lectures and Tours: Click BOOK NOW

Beat Generation and Beyond
John Natsoulas published a book on the galleries of the San Francisco Beat Generation and is an important historian of the period with first-hand knowledge, interviewing over 350 artists, musicians and poets and producing over 10 publications about the period. He is also the director of the Davis Jazz Beat Festival, which has had great musicians and poets including Michael McClur, Phillip Whalen, Allen Ginsberg, and Amiri Baraka, just to name a few. Natsoulas also has created many collaborative events in the spirit of the Beat Generation and gives an incredible lecture about the period. The lecture runs 45 minutes with 15 minutes of Questions and Answers.

The Funk Movement
Currently, curator, lecturer and historian John Natsoulas is working with Peter Selz on the Funk Book. He has recently, published The Great California Art Movement: UC Davis Fine Art Alumni Exhibition: 1960-1990, covering the critical Funk Artists, Robert Arneson, Roy De Forest, David Gilhooly and others. The lecture includes the beginning of the 1960s from the transition out of funk to the figure and includes the whimsy and political nature of Funk and the exaggeration of color, medium and subject matter that the Funk artists mastered. The lecture includes the 2nd and 3rd generation funk artists and the crossover of the Chicago Harry Who group with the California Funk artists. The Lecture runs 45 minutes with 15 minutes of questions and gives the viewer a clear understanding of the transition between the Beat and Funk artists in the early 1960s through the late 1970s.

The Practice of Art
An artist seminar on how to become an artist, how to market, present and promote your work and the steps to maintaining a career in art. John Natsoulas has published the book, The Art of Rejection and taught the class at UC Davis practice of Art with Dr. Andy Jones and David Hollowell. This hands-on seminar will last 2-3 hours.

How to Create an Affordable Community Based Public Art Program
This is a two-part lecture or seminar. The first part is going through step by step procedures on how to bring everyday people in the community together to make collaborative art that is very affordable and how cities can use it to market their community as a destination. This includes large murals, sculptures, etc. Part two is a hands-on work shop demonstrating how to create a large format mural or sculpture with your group. John Natsoulas was the winner of the American Planning Association Best Grass Roots Art Project in 2015.

Tours
The self-guided tour is available at any time—many of the murals and sculptures are lit up for evening viewing.
To pick up a copy of the Davis Transmedia Art Walk map, visit the Yolo County Visitors Bureau (132 E St., Suite 200; (530) 297-1900) or the John Natsoulas Center for the Arts (521 1st St.; (530) 756-3938).
We offer artist and curator-lead group and family tours. The guided tour ends with a private tour of the John Natsoulas Center of the Arts with the curator and/or one of the artists. The guided tour is available for a minimal fee and lasts 1 to 2 hours. We start the tour Saturday or Sunday at 10am by appointment only.
For more information about the Davis Transmedia Art Walk map, tours, call the Natsoulas Center at (530) 756-3938, email art@natsoulas.com, or visit www.natsoulas.com.