New Shapes and Flowers at the Art Museum

It’s two for the price of one at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art with a duo of new exhibitions.

Shape, Ground, Shadow: The Photographs of Ellsworth Kelly, as well as Flowers on a River: The Art of Chinese Flower-and-Bird Painting 1368-1911, Masterworks from the Tianjin Museum and the Changzhou Museum, have just opened.

Shape is a landmark show featuring 60 photographs by renowned artist Kelly, who died in 2015. He perceptively created a commending body of abstract art drawn from forms he found in the everyday world.

Flowers showcases masterpieces of Chinese painting spanning 500 years and marks the first show of works traveling from China to the U.S. since the onset of the pandemic. 

The exhibition premiered at the China Institute Gallery in New York earlier this year, and our Eden by the Beach’s museum is its second and final venue in America.

Among those getting a sneak peek at a VIP opening reception were Larry Feinberg and Starr Siegele, Anders Bergstrom, Penny Jenkins, Karen Lehrer, Nicholas Mutton, and Charles and Betsy Newman.