de Saisset Museum

Richard Mayhew

In 2005 the de Saisset Museum was proud to receive a gift of two Richard Mayhew paintings for the permanent collection, a generous gift by Ronald R. (‘70) and Gwendolyn O’Neil.

Richard Mayhew’s landscapes are luminous—infused with sparkling light and dreamy atmosphere. While he has focused on the genre of landscape throughout his four-decade-long career, his primary interest is conveying the spiritual, rather than the physical, power of place. Instead of painting outside, he prefers to recall an image of a place from his memory, in order to represent the mood of the particular location.

While he was based in the East Coast, Mayhew began teaching at San Jose City College in 1975, and for the next four years of his tenure there, he regularly drove across the country. Mayhew became captivated by the diverse landscapes he saw on these trips. These experiences made him acutely aware of the personal connections we make to landscapes: Americans are one of the most mobile peoples on earth and we tend to gravitate towards landscapes with which we identify.

Santa Cruz-based Richard Mayhew was born in Massapequa, New York, to Native American and African American parents. He was educated at Columbia University, the Academia Florence, the Art Students’ League, and the Brooklyn Museum Art School. His work has been exhibited extensively around the world and is included in museum permanent collections around the country.

These two works by Richard Mayhew have helped the Museum make progress in its ongoing goal to diversify the permanent collection and to increase the amount of works by artists of color. As a result of a recent grant from Santa Clara University’s Center for Multicultural Learning, the Museum will be able to make significant additional progress in this area. The grant will fund acquisitions to the collection by African American women artists. Students enrolled in SCU Assistant Professor Bridget Cooks’ African American Women in the Visual Arts class will be able to make the final selection of works acquired for the collection. These acquisitions will enhance the future teaching of Professor Bridget Cooks, by allowing current students to learn through the acquisitions process and future students to learn from viewing and studying relevant artworks. At the same time, these acquisitions will benefit the entire Bay Area community through exhibition and research opportunities that more accurately represent the diversity of this region.

Karen Kienzle
Curator of Exhibits and Collections