Exhibitions at the Peninsula Museum of Art in Burlingame

1-    Collateral Damage - Prints by Cosette Dudley

Cosette Dudley is a printmaker and lithographer.  Her work in this exhibition was inspired by her childhood friend Betty, a young girl of Japanese descent who was forced into an internment camp during WW2.  That brutal action shattered Betty and Cosette’s suburban neighborhood, delivering the cruelty of war right to their doors.  Betty was seemingly erased from the community, her innocence and childhood cut short.  With this exhibit, Cosette creates a link between the historical and the personal, furthering the conversation of erasure by burnishing portions of the images directly off the copper plate.  

Cosette Dudley began her printmaking career during the turbulent 1960s.  Her work was highly influenced by her own experiences as a child during WW2,as well as the impact of the Vietnam war on her later life.  Throughout her career she has continued to explore themes of social justice, civil liberties, war and peace, and the environment.

A third generation Californian, Cosette Dudley studied under Wayne Thiebaud and Barbara Foster.  She resides on the Peninsula.

Attached image -  Manzanar: Old History.

2-    Primarily Portraits - Sculpture by Spero Anargyros

Spero Anargyros (1915 - 2004) was a prominent local and international sculptor whose many famous pieces include a bronze bust of former San Francisco Mayor George Moscone which still graces the City Hall rotunda, an imposing 21-ton granite seal of the City and County of San Francisco atop the San Francisco Hall of Justice Building, and restorations of the 23-foot-tall neoclassical figures for the Palace of Fine Arts.  

A New York native who moved to San Francisco in the 1950s, Spero Anargyros found time to create more personal works in his Bay Area studios, among them, portraits of people who moved or inspired him in his daily life.  Actor Kirk Douglas was a favorite, as were the leading businessmen and political leaders of the day.

Quotes from the artist:

“It turns out I’m very radical, because I do things people recognize.”

“There is enough beauty around us to copy, why try to improve on it by imagining things?”

“I was lucky.  Early in life I found something I loved to do, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

When Spero died in 2004, his wife Maria Ester Anargyros of the Peninsula said there would be no services.  Her husband wanted friends to “have a glass of ouzo in his name” instead.