Santa Clara University

Although landscapes are a staple aesthetic style for any museum, the de Saisset Museum's new fall exhibits-The Art of Richard Mayhew and A Sense of Place: Location/Inspiration-will expose visitors to different takes on that common theme by attempting to convey the spiritual, not just the physical, power of the genre.

"In Mayhew's exhibit, which is so impressionistic and composite, visitors won't be able to say, 'Oh, I've seen that place before,' because it's his inner vision of all these places," said Sheryl Nonnenberg, an art researcher and writer who curated the exhibits. "But when they go to the next gallery to see A Sense of Place, they might recognize the location and say, 'Oh yes, I've been there, and I've seen that exact spot.'"

Richard Mayhew is an 85-year-old landscape painter of African-American and Native American descent, currently living in Soquel, Calif. His work has been shown in many presitigious museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.

The de Saisset exhibit is part of a three-museum retrospective of Mayhew's artistry in the Bay Area: the Museum of African Diaspora in San Francisco will feature his early work, the de Saisset will show work from the mid-1970s to mid-'90s; and the Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz will display his most recent compositions.

A Sense of Placeincludes works from the permanent collection of the de Saisset Museum as well as some works loaned from Smith Andersen Editions in Palo Alto, Calif., and the Patricia Sweetow Gallery in San Francisco. The works from the latter "will be three very contemporary artists who look at landscape in a unique way. I've got everything from prints and paintings to photography. This show runs the gamut in terms of different ways to look at landscapes," Nonnenberg said.

The fall exhibits run from September 25 from 7 to 9 p.m. For more information, visit www.scu.edu/desaisset.

Museum hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., unless otherwise indicated. Please call 408-554-4528 before visiting to confirm the schedule. Admission to exhibitions is always free.