Fresno Art Museum
BY JAMES MENDEZ
The Fresno Art Museum will open five new exhibits on Aug. 9, which will remain on display until Jan. 11, 2026. “Come and see amazing things,” says the museum’s curator, Sarah Vargas, “Fresno’s treasures.”
The Fresno Art Museum’s Council of 100 Distinguished Woman Artist for 2025 exhibition is The San Francisco Years: Paintings 1965 through 1972 and Recent Works 2008–2024 by Linda Lomahaftewa, Hopi/Choctaw. She is a printmaker, painter, mixed media artist and educator.
The Council annually exhibits the work of “an outstanding woman artist over the age of 60 who has spent 30 or more years in the studio, has created a unique and prestigious body of work, and lives 100 miles outside of Fresno.”
Lomahaftewa was born in Phoenix, Ariz. In 1965, after she had obtained her high school diploma from the Indian American Institute of Art (IAIA) in Santa Fe, N.M., she moved to the Bay Area, where she studied at the San Francisco Art Institute in California.
She lived and worked in the Bay Area until 1976 when she returned to Santa Fe to teach art at the IAIA, which had become a four-year tribal college focused on arts-related programs. She is based in Santa Fe.
Her abstract paintings are known for using her own culture’s color and perspective. Her works unite the ancient Indian world and landscape with the contemporary world. Her works have been shown in many exhibitions across the country.
In addition, the following exhibits open on Aug. 9:
- Crab Orchard Cemetery by Jo Hansen is part of the permanent collection of the Fresno Art Museum and will be in the Fig Garden and Duncan galleries. Last shown in 2009, this exhibition re-creates Hanson’s original 1974 installation that was itself a re-creation of historical monuments that “explore the universality of memory and death.”
- The Fruit of Life: New Paintings by Eliana Saucedo, a local artist, will be in the Moradian Gallery. She earned an M.A. in studio painting from Fresno State in 2011. “She shows a strong sense of nostalgia,” says Vargas, “Beautiful.” Her still lifes are reminiscent of the Dutch Golden Age of Art (1588–1672). Her other paintings include her family and culture.
- Stone Sculpture of Zimbabwe in the Hallowell Gallery includes pieces from the private collection of Fresno residents Mona N. Cummings and Kudzai Nyandoro. The exhibit includes stone carvings from Shona artists who learned their art from previous generations of stone sculptors. The art of stone sculpture in Zimbabwe is evolving with these more recent works being more abstract than earlier work from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
- Art of the Word: The Simply Magnificent Art of Ashley Spires will be in the Contemporary Gallery. Spires is an award-winning Canadian children’s book writer and illustrator. This exhibit is from her book The Most Magnificent Maker’s A to Z.
Since 1949, under different names, the Fresno Art Museum has been providing Fresno residents with opportunities to experience art exhibitions and educational programs. The museum showcases and encourages local artists and exhibits nationally and internationally known artists from a wide range of visual arts media.
For more information, visit fresnoartmuseum.org.
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James Mendez came to Fresno in 1977 for his medical residency training at what was then called the Valley Medical Center. He stayed to practice medicine and raise a family. He is now a retired physician and a community activist.
