Livia Stein: Forward and Back

May 11 - June 24, 2023
​Artist's Reception, Saturday, June 3rd, 1- 4 pm​

Transmission Gallery presents recent mixed media works by Livia Stein.  Bridging an early interest in photography with a decades long painting practice, Stein's smaller-scale framed pieces vibrate with delicious color, expressive paint and evocative imagery overlaying archival photo prints. 

All are invited to stop in for the Artist's Reception Saturday, June 3rd, between 1 and 4 pm to meet Livia Stein and enjoy the light refreshments on our outdoor deck (weather permitting). Free street parking in the neighborhood.

Livia Stein, Little lady in high heels, 2023, 14” x 11", gouache and acrylic on archival photograph

Press: In order to feel alive: The paintings of Livia Stein, Mary Corbin, 48hills: Independent San Francisco news + culture, May 11, 2023

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Black Column

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Pretty Miss Yellow Dress

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Pink Bird

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Pink Dress

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Sweet Miss

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In a Canyon

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Who Goes There?

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Two Plants

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Simply Gorgeous

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Green Man

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Statement: FORWARD AND BACK
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This is a fairly new body of work.  It is about my desire to play and have the art process be one of endless discovery.
It is the work that gives me space to meander from one chamber of my brain to the next, thinking only of color, form and line and what will connect or stay separated.
The series is also about my long time love of photography and how I can connect it to paint, in this instance Gouache. 
There are hidden secrets of photography’s form and structure here.  It is the bones of the piece you rarely see.  The underlying photos printed on archival paper give license to anything that I want to see come about visually.

- Livia Stein 2023

Past exhibitions at Transmission Gallery: 

Livia Stein in Two Parts: Glow of Opera and During and After the Deluge, Livia Stein's 2022 back to back solo exhibitions at Transmission Gallery
Almost Human, Livia Stein's 2020 solo exhibition at Transmission Gallery   
My Life as a Pelican,  Livia Stein's 2018 solo exhibition at Transmission Gallery  
​Livia Stein: New Work,   Livia Stein's 2016 solo exhibition at Transmission Gallery 
Amalgams & Hybrids Livia Stein's 2014 solo exhibition at Transmission Gallery      
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More about Livia Stein

Livia Stein was born in Dallas, Texas. She descends from Russian refugees fleeing the Pogroms in Eastern Europe at the turn of the last century.  Her family came to California in 1950 during the post-war migration of people seeking the sunshine and varied opportunities of the West Coast. She was raised in and around Los Angeles and Orange County. She fled the harsh light and even harsher conservative politics of Orange County (then home to the John Birch Society, drive-in Mega-Churches, Knott’s Berry Farm & Disneyland) to attend University of at Berkeley. She studied History at UC Berkeley and pursued a master’s degree in South Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.  She spent several months in India as a student and has continued to travel there during the past 20 years. Influenced to do photography by her father, a talented amateur photographer, she studied at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. She began to shift her artistic focus away from Photography to Painting while working on a Master’s Degree.  She received her Masters at San Francisco State University, Center for Interdisciplinary and Experimental Art, founded by Jock Reynolds, now the director of the Yale University Art Museum.  She currently lives in Oakland where she maintains a studio. She is formerly a Professor of Art at Dominican University, San Rafael, California. She has one son, Theo Vincent Fram, whose love of toys, animals and machines, has greatly enriched and influenced her art over the years.

 Stein's work has been exhibited in Europe, South America, India and throughout the United States. She received an NDEA Fellowship while studying Indian History and Art at the University of Pennsylvania. More recently she was an Artist in Residence in Baroda, India. In 2007 she had a Residency at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, which included a Solo Exhibition of her Paintings.  She was again in India for a Painting Residency just outside New Delhi, winter 2012.  And in November of 2015 she was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome. Her work is in the Collection of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Oakland Museum of California, Dominican University, University of Iowa Art Museum to name a few.

CV LIVIA STEIN
Education:
1971 University of California, Berkeley, BA History
1972-1973 University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Post Graduate Study
1975-1977 Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles
1983 San Francisco State University, MA, Center for Interdisciplinary and Experimental Art
Selected Exhibitions:
2022
35 by 35, Anniversary Invitational, Benicia Arts. Benicia, Ca
Transmission Gallery, Oakland, California, The Glow of Opera and Before the Deluge, Paintings and Works on Paper

2020
Transmission Gallery, Oakland, California, Almost Human
2019
Townsend Center for the Humanities, University of California Berkeley
2018
Transmission Gallery, Oakland, California, My Life as a Pelican
2016
Transmission Gallery, Oakland, California,  Recent Work
Richmond Art Center, Richmond, California
2014
15th Street Gallery Solo Exhibition, Boulder, Colorado
Kala Institute, Berkeley, California
Honorary Masters Award Exhibition
15th Street Gallery, Boulder, Colorado
Sanchez Art Center, Pacifica, California
2013
Transmission Gallery, Oakland, California
2012
Artworks Downtown, San Rafael, California
Art From Sanskriti, Work from India Residency
2010
Berkeley Art Center, Bay Area Treasures, Berkeley, Ca
Triton Museum, Santa Clara, California Recent Paintings
2009
Andrea Schwartz Gallery, Two-Person Show, Paintings, Works on Paper, San Francisco, Ca
2008
Artists Annual Book Show Invitational, Donna Seager Gallerey, Mill Valley, Ca
Banned and Recovered, San Francisco Center for the Book, San Francisco
De Young Art Museum, Kimball Gallery, Paintings & Paper, San Francisco
2007
Yuma Arizona Art Museum, Yuma, Arizona
Togonon Gallery, San Francisco, California

Seattle Art Museum Gallery, Seattle, Washington
Oakland Museum of California, 12th Street Gallery
2006
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Artists Gallery, Paintings
Kala Printmaking Institute, Berkeley, California Works on Paper
Triton Museum, Santa Clara, California Monotypes
1993
Joan Roebuck Gallery, Lafayette, California, Paintings, Drawings, Prints
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina,
Sun Gallery, Hayward, California, Three Person Show
1985
Palo Alto Cultural Center, Palo Alto, California, Invitational Show
San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art
1984
Reviewing the Figure, Clorox Corporation, Oakland and California State University Hayward
All California '84, Laguna Beach Museum,. Laguna Beach, California
Heller Gallery, University of California, Berkeley, California
California Society of Printmakers, San Rafael, California
1982
California and West Coast Photographers, Cypress College, Cypress, California
1981
Kennedy Gallery, College of Holy Names, Oakland, California
Cameravision Gallery, Los Angeles, California, California
Bibliography:
Howard Junker, ZZYZVA Magazine, Black and White Images, Winter 2007
Richard Whittaker, Works and Conversations Magazine, Interview with Visuals, October 2007
Dewitt Cheng Review, “India on My Mind, Art Limited Magazine, July 2007
Livia Stein, Interior Dramas, Catalog 2007
Debra Koppman, Catalog Essay, Solo Exhibit, Togonon Gallery, San Francisco, 2007
Victoria Dalkey, SACRAMENTO BEE Image Alone Isn’t Everything, May 1998, Sacramento, California

Mark Van Proyen, ARTWEEK, Bridges: Artist's Response to Disaster, March, 1990, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, California
Rick Deragon, Sunday Herald, "Diverse Approaches...", April 1990
Charles Shere, OAKLAND TRIBUNE, "Emeryville's Art a Display of Industry" November 10, 1987
Phyllis Bragdon, MARIN INDPENDENT JOURNAL - "The Abstract and Oblique on Parade", September 30, 1986
Mollie Malone, ARTWEEK, "Painters Who Make Prints",- March 22, 1986
Phyllis Bragdon, INDEPENDENT JOURNAL - "What's Going on in Printmaking 1984
Muse India, INDIAN LITERATURE, e-journal interview with Livia Stein
Selected Collections:
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Art Oakland Museum of California
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Dominican University of California
David A. Gekin, M.D. University of Iowa Art Museum
Schreiber Collection Marian Parmenter, Mill Valley, CA
Auberge du Soleil Suzy Locke & Associates
Federal Home Loan Bank Kala Institute Print Archive
Consolidated Capital Kaiser Foundation
James & Claire Niven Clark Community College Las Vegas, NV
San Francisco State University Mendelsohn & Mattis
J.H. Whitney & Company Saintsbury Winery
San Francisco Cardiology Mark Buell/Suzie Tompkins
Awards & Honors:
American Academy in Rome, Residency 2018
Sanskriti Foundation, Delhi, India January 2012 Residency
deYoung Museum, Month Residency and Solo Exhibit, Kimball Gallery 2008

Artist in Residence, Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco February & March 2007
Artists Residency, Maharaja Singh, University School of Fine Art, Baroda, India, January 2007
Yuma Symposium, Guest Artist, February 2007
Graduate Student Award for Distinguished Achievement San Francisco State University,
NDEA, Title VI Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania 1972
Artist-in-Residence, Printmaking Fellowship 1990, Kala Institute, Berkeley, California
Alameda County Arts Council Purchase Award, 1994​