Roland Petersen

Roland Conrad Petersen (born 1926) is a Danish-born American painter, printmaker, and professor. His career spans over 50 years, primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area and is perhaps best-known for his "Picnic series" (a yearly event at UC Davis) beginning in 1959 to today. He is part of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.

Petersen was born 1926 in Endelave, Denmark. He received a B.A. in 1949 and M.A. degree in 1950 from the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley), where he studied under Chiura Obata, John Haley, and Glen Wessels. He continued his studies at California School of Fine Arts (now known as San Francisco Art Institute), the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts in Provincetown (from 1950 to 1951), California College of Arts and Crafts (1952 to 1954), and Atelier 17 with Stanley Hayter (from 1963, and 1970 to 1971).

After graduation college in 1950, Petersen made his way east to study with Hans Hoffman School of Fine Arts in Provincetown. Roland would return again the following summer of 1951 after a sojourn in Europe studying for six months with the printmaker Stanley William Hayter. Vestiges of Hofmann's approach, including his conviction that "every deep artistic expression is a product of a conscious feeling for reality," are present in Petersen's works of the early 1950s. It was Hoffman's teaching that showed Petersen how to incorporate "recognizable, everyday objects into this theory of opposition push/pull" a theory, which stresses the applying and combining of opposing forces in art.

He taught painting at Washington State University from 1956 to 1992; and painting and printmaking at University of California, Davis from 1956 to 1991.

He won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1963; and a Fulbright Fellowship to France in 1970.

In March 2010, Petersen's work was the subject of a major retrospective ("Roland Petersen: 50 Years of Painting") held at the Monterey Museum of Art in Monterey, California. Petersen, his daughter, and his wife, the photographer Caryl Ritter, were present. In 2016 a one man show In Perspective was held at his current gallery The Studio Shop Gallery in Burlingame, California, and again on September 22 – October 15, 2017—the show is called Six Decades of Painting—resulting in a bound book of Petersen's work under the same title.

Roland Petersen was a part of the Bay Area Figurative Movement—a mid-20th Century art movement made up of a group of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area who abandoned working in the prevailing style of Abstract Expressionism in favor of a return to figuration in painting during the 1950s and onward into the 1960s. The "Bridge Generation" (the second of three generations) included the artists Roland Petersen, Nathan Oliveira, Theophilus Brown, Paul Wonner, John Hultberg, and Frank Lobdell.

• Davis Arts Center, Davis, California
• Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis, California
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
• Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, (Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts), San Francisco, California
• Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia
• Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California
• University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada
• Wesleyan University School of Art, Bloomington, Illinois
• Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, California
• Sacramento City College, Sacramento, California
• Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, San Diego, California
• Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, California
• Musée Municipal, Brest, France
• Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California
• Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California
• Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), San Francisco, California
• De Young Museum, San Francisco, California
• Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California
• Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, New York
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, New York

2017Roland Petersen: Six Decades of Painting, Studio Shop Gallery, Burlingame, CA 2016Roland Petersen: In Perspective, Studio Shop Gallery, Burlingame, CA2015 Works On Paper 1959–1969, Elliott Fouts Gallery, Sacramento, CA 2013 A Journey Through Time, Elliott Fouts Gallery, Sacramento, CA 2008 Roland Petersen: A Natural Order, Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2002Roland Petersen: Early Paintings 1958-–1969, Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2001 Roland Petersen: Recent Works, John Natsoulas Gallery, Sacramento, CA1998 Roland Petersen: Recent Works, John Natsoulas Gallery, Sacramento, CA 1998Endelave Museum, Endelave, Denmark (traveled throughout Denmark) 1995 Roland Petersen: Recent Works, Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco, CA 1993 Roland Petersen: Works on Paper, Harcourts Modern and Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA1992 Retrospective, University of California, Davis, Richard L. Nelson Gallery, University of California, Davis, CA 1991 Roland Petersen: Works on Paper, Harcourts Modern and Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA 1990 Roland Petersen: Bay Area Paintings of the Sixties, Vanderwoude Tananbaum Gallery, New York, NY1989 Roland Petersen: Works on Paper, Harcourts Modern and Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA 1987 Roland Petersen—Bay Area Paintings of the Sixties, Vanderwoude/Tananbaum Gallery, New York, NY 1985 Roland Petersen: Encaustic Paintings, Rorick Gallery, San Francisco, CA1984 Roland Petersen: Selected Monotypes & Watercolors, Smith Andersen Gallery, Palo Alto, CA 1981–83 Roland Petersen: Encaustic Paintings, Rorick Gallery, San Francisco, CA1980 University of Reading, Reading, England1979 Brubaker Gallery, Sarasota, FL 1978 Roland Petersen Retrospective, University of California, Davis, Memorial Union Art Gallery, University of California, Davis, CA 1977 Aberbach Fine Arts Gallery, London, England. Kathryn Markel Gallery, New York, NY. University of Reading, Reading, England 1976 20 Year Retrospective of Color Prints by Roland Petersen, Washington State ArtServices Program (traveling, organized by the Museum of Art), Pullman, WA 1975 Adele Bednarz Gallery, Los Angeles, CA1973 Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA. Adele Bednarz Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1972 Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ 1970 Adele Bednarz Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1968 M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA 1967 Staempfli Gallery, New York, NY (also 1965, 1962) 1965 Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA 1961 Esther-Robles Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1961California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA 1954 Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA

Selected Group Exhibitions2016Out Our Way, Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis, CA 2002Geometry Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2001California Printmakers Association: Group Exhibition, Marin Civic Center, San Rafael, CA1995Andre Milan Gallery, Sao Paulo, Brazil 1993Artists Contemporary Gallery, Sacramento, CAPence Gallery, Davis, CA 1992–93 California Painting, The Essential Modernist Framework, Fine Art, CA State University, Los Angeles, CA; Traveled to University Art Gallery, California State University, San Bernardino, CA 1992Hall of Pictures, Uman, Russia California Dreamin', Fresno Metropolitan Museum, Fresno, CA 1990Northern California Figuration, Natsoulas, Novelozo, Davis, CA 1989Collectors Exhibit, Sacramento City College, Sacramento, CA 1985Sacramento/Davis Interface, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA 1984–86 Prints U.S.A., First overseas exhibition by the California Society of Printmakers: World Print Council, San Francisco, CA;Traveled to the National Museum, Singapore; National Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand; Amerika Haus, Berlin, Germany; Malmo Konsthall,Malmo, Sweden; Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico 1980The Collectors Eye, Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Laguna Beach, CA; Traveled to Aberbach Gallery, London, England 1977–78 Atelier 17 Exhibition, Elvehjem Art Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI; traveled to Museum of Art, University ofIowa, Iowa City, IA; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Museum of Art, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; Krannert ArtMuseum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL; Aberbach Fine Arts Gallery, London, England; Kathryn MarkelGallery, New York, NY 1972The American Artist and Water Reclamation, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC1971Four-Person Exhibition, American Cultural Center, Paris, France 1969The Illinois Biennial, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Champaign, IL 1968The Humanist Tradition with David Park in Contemporary American Painting, New York School, New York, NY. Four Person Exhibitionwith David Park, Elmer Bischoff and Joan Brown, Bednarz and Heritage Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1966Contemporary American Artists in the White House, White House, Washington, DC1964Painting and Sculpture Today, Herron Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN196268th Denver Annual, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO 1961National Watercolor Exhibition, Peoria, IL 1960First Winter Invitational, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA1956San Francisco Art Association Invitational, M.H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA 1955Second Oil Annual, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA 1954San Francisco Art Annual, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA1951Atelier 17, New York, NY. American Painters, Florence, Italy. Young Painters, Beaux Gallery, Paris, France 1950National College Exhibition, Andover, MA