November 13 -- Three of California's most influential artists -- Wayne Thiebaud, Manuel Neri and William T. Wiley -- will participate in a panel discussion at 6 p.m. in the Studio Theatre at the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at UC Davis. The event is free and open to the public.

Titled "You See: The Early Years of the UC Davis Art Faculty," the forum is being held in conjunction with the You See exhibit at the campus's Richard L. Nelson Gallery, which continues through Dec. 9. The exhibit is the first combined showing of works by Thiebaud, Neri, Wiley and two of their late colleagues, Roy De Forest and Robert Arneson.

All five -- recruited to UC Davis around 1960 by Richard Nelson, first chair of the art department and namesake of the gallery where the You See exhibit opened in September -- are considered to be among the most significant artists ever to live and work in Northern California.

The discussion will be moderated by Michael Schwager, curator of the di Rosa Preserve: Art & Nature. The Napa Valley institution houses nearly 2,200 works of art by more than 900 Northern California artists.