The Nelson Gallery invites the public to a celebration, Saturday, Jan. 15, for the gallery's new home (in the old University Club) and its two winter shows. See separate story on the Nelson's move.

The Nelson's winter quarter exhibitions

• American Gothic: Regionalist Portraiture from the Collection — A survey of portraiture over the past 100 years, from the university’s Fine Art Collection. Guest-curator Lee Plested has selected more than 100 pieces, including several new acquisitions never exhibited previously at the Nelson. Through this exhibition, according to the Nelson Gallery, “a genealogy of stylistic development emerges with a special focus on artists and activities in and around UC Davis and Northern California.” American Gothic, which takes its name from the Grant Wood work, arguably the most famous painting of Americans, investigates how artists have chosen to picture themselves and their neighbors through the 20th century and into the 21st century. From Whistler through Warhol, the exhibition includes significant presentations of major artists with a special focus on the Davis Five: Robert Arneson, Roy de Forest, Manuel Neri, Wayne Thiebaud and William T. Wiley. The exhibition also includes important works by Mark Tobey, Nathan Olivera, Deborah Butterfield, Bruce Connor, Bruce Nauman, Nancy Holt, Anthony Hernandez, Chris Johanson and many more. Jan. 15-March 13, Nelson Gallery, Nelson Hall (formerly the University Club). Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Friday (by appointment only). 

• Gordon Cook: Out There — Twenty paintings, drawings and lithographs by San Francisco’s Gordon Cook (1927-85), focusing on Cook’s fascination with water views, including many sites in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, while at the same time giving a strong sense of the wide range of his work: still-life paintings and an example of the freestanding painted cutout constructions that Cook liked to make for his friends and family. Guest-curated by renowned San Francisco critic and poet Bill Berkson. The exhibition comes 22 years after the Nelson’s presentation of a Cook show organized by Price Amerson. In recognition of that event, people who visit the Out There exhibition will be able to view a video of Professor Emeritus Wayne Thiebaud’s 1988 tribute to Cook. Jan. 15-March 13, Nelson Gallery, Nelson Hall (formerly the University Club). Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Friday (by appointment only).

Also new for winter quarter

• BAG: Bags Across the Globe — Faculty member Ann Savageau and her students present bag designs that make use of textile waste. Savageau sees these recycled, reusable bags as alternatives to plastic bags, and a good use for the 1.25 million tons of textile waste that go to U.S. landfills every year. Jan. 18-March 11, Design Museum, 145 Walker Hall. Hours: noon-4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2-4 p.m. Sunday.

• Euclides da Cunha: A Life Between the Disciplines — This exhibition takes its name from a symposium that is scheduled for Nov. 5, about the Brazilian writer and intellectual, whose seminal work, Os sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands), published in 1902, recounted the messianic religious uprising that led to the 1897 Canudos War. Over the past century. Os sertões has influenced both Latin American authors and international novelists, including Mario Vargas Llosa, author of 1981's La guerra del fin del mundo (The War of the End of the World), and inspired several films and documentaries. Da Cunha worked as a journalist and was a dedicated essayist, publishing pieces on themes that ranged from Brazilian history, geography, nationality and diplomatic relationships among nations, to topics about Latin American and European history. Da Cunha also was a prolific poet with an extensive oeuvre of Romantic poems. He also worked as an engineer, building bridges and schools that are still in use more than 100 years later. As a cartographer, he helped negotiate and demarcate Brazil's Amazonian border with Peru. An educator, a geographer and an early environmental scientist, da Cunha's work in the Amazon culminated with the posthumous publication of À margem da história. The exhibition is the work of Myra Appel, head of the Humanities, Social Sciences and Government Information Services Department and bibliographer, Latin American Studies; and professors Leopoldo Bernucci and Robert Newcomb of the Department of Spanish and Classics, with assistance from Tim Silva (graphics) and Alison Lanius (display). Through winter quarter, lobby, Shields Library. Regular hours: 7:30 a.m.-midnight Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, noon-6 p.m. Saturday and noon-midnight Sunday.

More information on the symposium.

• Sa Moana: The Sea Inside — American Samoan artist Dan Taulapapa McMullin presents oil paintings and installation sculptures that express the complexities of contemporary life for Pacific Islanders. The exhibition, comprising new works developed recently in the Cook Islands and Fiji, and in California, address the issues of tsunami, climate change, the indigenous body, communal traditions and urban change. “From indigenous icons and social media images, Taulapapa investigates the critical position of Pacific Islanders in contemporary Oceania in works that challenge perceptions about Polynesian art," reads a postcard announcement for the exhibition. Through March 10, C.N. Gorman Museum, 1316 Hart Hall. Hours: noon-5 p.m. Monday-Friday. Artist's talk, 4 p.m. Thursday, March 10, followed by closing reception.

• Which Came First — A pictorial representation of chicken reproduction in linocut, by Craft Center screen-printing student manager Emily Sin. Through Feb. 4, Craft Center Gallery, South Silo. Hours: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. weekends. Reception, 5-6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 15.

Ongoing exhibitions

• Conversations About Race — Built around this year's Campus Community Book Project: Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race, by Beverly Daniel Tatum. The General Library Committee on Diversity prepared the exhibition. Through spring quarter, lobby, Shields Library. Regular hours: 7:30 a.m.-midnight Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, noon-6 p.m. Saturday and noon-midnight Sunday.

• Harvesting Sugar Beets, 1942 — Comprising work by F. Hal Higgins, a prominent California agricultural journalist of the early to mid 20th century, who had been asked to document — in words and pictures — the importation of Mexican guest workers under a U.S.-Mexico agreement that later became known as the Bracero Program. Patsy Inouye of the University Library's Special Collections Department assembled the exhibition from the library's F. Hal Higgins Collection, one of the largest and most significant agricultural technology history collections in the United States. According to the University Library's website, Higgins' photographs offer an extraordinary look at the optimism and promise that the Mexican guest workers brought to California agriculture. Through winter quarter, lobby, Shields Library. Regular hours: 7:30 a.m.-midnight Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, noon-6 p.m. Saturday and noon-midnight Sunday.

• Works by Maurine (Fay) Morse Nelson — Largely overshadowed by her husband, the Nelson Gallery namesake, Fay Morse Nelson "was "clearly a talented artist in her own right," says Renny Pritikin, director of the Nelson Gallery, who curated this exhibition. It includes almost all of Fay Morse Nelson's works from the university's Fine Art Collection — with most of the works being exhibited for the first time in 13 years. Through Jan. 21, Gallagher Hall (home of the Graduate School of Management).

Off-campus exhibitions

• Wayne Thiebaud, professor emeritus of art — Five of his paintings are on display at the California Museum in Sacramento, in conjunction with his induction Dec. 14 into the California Hall of Fame. See separate stories on Thiebaud, "Painter, teacher, visionary" and his induction into the California Hall of Fame. The museum has gathered personal items from all of the 2010 inductees, for an exhibition that is scheduled to run through next Oct. 31. Thiebaud's picks: Bikini Figure (1966), Waterland (1996), Two Tulip Sundaes (2009), and Intersection Building and Cliff Ridge (both from 2010), all oils, on canvas or wood. The museum is in the California State Archives building at 1020 O St., at the corner of 10th Street, one block south of Capitol Park. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. (No one admitted after 4:30 p.m.) Closed all major holidays and furlough Fridays.

• Fins, Feathers & Flowers: Art From Nature — An exhibition of delicate fish and plant prints by Christopher Dewees, professor emeritus in the Sea Grant Extension Program and a Cooperative Extension specialist in Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, and his wife, Christine. Through Jan. 21, Davis Community Gallery, 2051 John Jones Road. Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday and by appointment. See their work online.