Napa’s Loss; Our Gain

Where the Boundaries Are

Jim Melchert

di Rosa “Incorrect Museum”

Ongoing – January 3, 2026

PRELIMINARIES

Are you a bit unclear about what the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art is and how its identity differs from other museums of Northern California?

• The di Rosa Art Center has long been known for its Contemporary Art, particularly its Post-WWII, Northern California art. The impressive collection includes: Butterfield, di Suvero, Saul, Joan Brown, Chagoya and De Feo.

• Indeed, the museum is praised for its unique and often unconventional collection of contemporary art.

Are you aware that the di Rosa Museum is under financial stress?

• It’s permanent museum in Napa is temporarily closed. There is a small satellite museum that continues to maintain a presence in its home town.

As they say: It’s an ill wind that blows no good. This good wind blew all the way to the Dogpatch. The di Rosa’s impressive 1,600-piece collection, based on the artworks gathered by Rene and Veronica di Rosa, will be available for viewing at its long-term satellite space: San Francisco’s Minnesota Street Project. [Did I mention it’s FREE!?!]

The di Rosa is christening its new space the “Incorrect Museum.” The name was inspired by the way di Rosa embraced criticisms of his collection.

“Rene was an eccentric character, and was very proud of the fact that people called his collection ‘incorrect.’ He believed that everyone should stand in front of a work of art and have their own feelings and their own thoughts about it. He embraced radical thinking. He frowned upon traditional art, historical principles, and hierarchy,” explained Kate Eilertsen, the Museum’s executive director and chief curator.

Take some time to explore the Incorrect Museum. Enjoy your visit with the many giants of Contemporary Art. Drink in what it means that so many of these artists have called Northern California their home.

JIM MELCHERT

This is the first major retrospective of works by Jim Melchert, a pioneering figure in conceptual ceramics of Northern California, who recently passed at the age of 92. Melchert’s work will be accompanied by selected works from contemporary artists in conversation with the artist’s legacy.

When it comes to famous ceramicists, Northern California has been blessed with an embarrassment of riches. Of course, the most famous of those ceramicists were a part of Robert Arneson’s group centered at UC Davis.

Eggheads, UC Davis

Meanwhile, Melchert developed the Bay Area contingent of ceramic artists during his 30-year tenure as a professor at UC Berkeley. In his 66 years as a professional artist, he experimented in many art forms:

• Painting (earning his MFA from University of Chicago)

• Frottage (only his rubbings were of postcards and envelopes)

• Video (including a slow-motion film of a nude young couple having a water fight that manages to be at once a study of bodies in motion a la Muybridge, and a Keystone Kops-like homage to slapstick

• Land Art

• Performance Art when he was dipping heads of onlookers into loose clay and then having them remain still while the clay hardened

L 2 R: Rubbings of envelopes; Untitled [The Water Film], a nude water fight and Earth Door. Earth Door is a permanent artwork set in the park surrounding the di Rosa Center in Napa and features the pattern of plowed vineyards within its ridges.

While Ruth Asawa turned clay heads into sculptures, Melchert had a different idea. After the intrepid souls removed their heads from the bucket, they sat in a line on a bench as the slip dried, the clay transforming their bodies into vessels. Melchert later said: It encases your head so that the sounds you hear are interior, your breathing, your heartbeat, your nervous system. It is surprising how vast we are inside. What I realized was, by sitting there with the other people with my ears and eyes blocked, I was experiencing my interior.

Some of Melchert’s heads were transformed into sculpture

In the end Melchert is best remembered as a ceramicist and sculptor and for the founding role he played in the Funk Art movement.

FUNK ART

Funk Art is an American art movement which originated in San Francisco and arose in reaction to the nonobjectivity of abstract expressionism. With its anti-establishment purpose, Funk Art brought figuration back as subject matter in painting. The movement's name was derived from the jazz term “funky” to describe the passionate, sensuous and quirky. Not surprisingly, many Funk artists began as Bay Area Figurative Movement painters from the 1950s. The Funk Art movement originated from the bohemian underground that thrived in the Bay Area.

FUNK ART CERAMICS

Robert Arneson started the ceramic art movement within Funk Art in the Bay Area and Funk Art Ceramics will always be synonymous with him and UC Davis. Before Arneson, ceramics were considered more of a craft rather than a prestigious art form; he changed all that. Arneson’s works were initially characterized as Pop Art, with their focus on mundane objects. However, he included personal elements to his sculptures, which was a defining factor of Funk Art.

While Arneson migrated to Davis, Melchert remained anchored in the East Bay. With giants like Melchert, Peter Voulkos and Arneson experimenting with the artistic potential of clay, the California Clay Movement was born. Northern California has remained a hot bed of Ceramic Arts ever since the postwar period.

MELCHERT METHOD

In all his works, the path of Melchert’s artistic development is conceptual. His ideas led him to the “Melchert Method” a unique process involving ceramic tiles: breaking them, drawing on them, reassembling them and painting the new constructions with glaze. The reassembled ceramics are fired to create new, multi-layered ceramic sculptures. This process, which emphasizes transformation and the integration of drawing with sculpture, was a significant part of Melchert's career. The Melchert Method, his distinctive approach to working with ceramics, moving beyond traditional methods to incorporate conceptual and sculptural dimensions, continues to influence potters today, including Sterling Ruby, Yeesookyung and Kathy Butterly.

Examples of Melchert’s use of industrially-made tiles, dropped, reassembled and glazed. Clockwise: Feathers of a Phoenix; Alternating Current #2 and Title Unknown.

Melchert’s works are part of the permanent collections of SFMOMA, the Oakland Museum of California, the LA County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

For more information about the Incorrect Museum, click here.

WHILE YOU ARE THERE

Whether you drove to the Incorrect Museum or used BART, be sure to take a moment before you leave The City, to check out Alicia McCarthy’s new mural on the wall of the Proper Hotel at Seventh & Market.

If you think you are looking at a giant weaving, then McCartney has done her job.

The mural measures 112 feet x 85 feet and has more than 100 hues.