Matt Mullican to Irvine

Matt Mullican, Untitled (Elements, Nature), about 1987. UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art

UC Irvine's Langson Institute and Museum of California Art has recently acquired several works treating the California landscape. One is a large (15-ft-wide) 1980s oilstick painting by Matt Mullican. A gift of Adam J. Liff and Ann Marie Plane, it joins abstractions by the artist's father, Lee Mullican, in the IMCA's Gerald E. Buck collection. (I'm not sure whether the collection has anything by the artist's mother, Luchita Hurtado.)

The Langson has also added a Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle photocollage that was commissioned for an exhibition last year. THEY: A Temple of Black Possibility incorporates images of Allensworth, Calif., a 1920s Black utopia turned ghost town. Janet Mohle-Boetani, MD, supported the purchase.

Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, THEY: A Temple of Black Possibility [Allensworth Pt. 1-3], 2022

Julius Shulman, Capri Theater, San Diego, 1954

Julius Shulman's Capri Theater, San Diego, becomes the Irvine museum's only image by the architectural photographer. The Capri movie house, whose modernist lobby doubled as a kunsthalle, was demolished in 2003. Gallerist Craig Krull donated the print.