Drawing on Travels Near and Far

Light, escapist, fun. That sort of experience seems to suit the summer and that’s exactly what David Farmer had in mind for UC Santa Barbara’s main exhibit of the sizzling season.

Travel is the topic at UCSB’s University Art Museum, where Tuesday through Aug. 6 photographs, prints and drawings from the 16th to the early 20th Century take visitors to Italy, Japan, Egypt and other lands near and far.

Two categories compose “An Eye on the World: Works by Traveling Photographers and Artists,” said museum director Farmer, who organized the show. One, mostly photographs, features works by artists who wanted to document their travels, the other showcases art made as souvenirs.

“We have 18th-Century prints of Rome by Piranesi and Rossini,” made during the era of the Grand Tour when tourists flocked to exotic climes worldwide, Farmer said. “There are also prints of Egyptian monuments (by 19th-Century photographer Felice Beato) and wonderful hand-tinted shots of Japan.”

Entertainment notwithstanding, education was also an aim of the exhibit, Farmer said. Education about early picture takers who’d go to any length in the pursuit of their passion, for instance.

“I’m in awe of these photographers who in the 1880s packed up their heavy equipment--glass plates and chemicals and such--and went out to the Rockies or God knows where and did everything right there on the spot. This is a homage to those early travelers who had to endure quite a bit sometimes. Travel is pretty easy today compared to what it was before. We’ve gotten used to cars and roads and airplanes, but going to some of these really exotic places was hard work.”

SHARING THE WEALTH: An important Cubist painting by Georges Braque and a large-scale sculpture by Alexander Calder have been given to the San Francisco Museum of Art by the Rita Bloch Schreiber Trust. The bequested works are Braque’s “Violin and Candlestick” (1910) and Calder’s “Big Crinkley” (1969). Schreiber was the late widow of Taft Schreiber, a former executive at MCA Inc. Last month, the Museum of Contemporary Art here was given a gift of 18 stellar modern and contemporary art reportedly worth more than $60 million from the couple’s renowned 35-piece collection. The Schreiber’s son Toby has served on the San Francisco museum’s board of trustees since 1980.

TOWN CULTURE CRIER: The first edition of City Arts News, a monthly newsletter on municipal arts and cultural activities published by the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, defines the new Los Angeles Endowment for the Arts. The inaugural bulletin also lists other department functions and future public meetings about the endowment--a program that could generate $25 million for the arts. To receive the newsletter, call Barbara Goldstein at (213) 485-2433.

PEOPLE: Michael Nash recently began his new job as media arts curator for the Long Beach Museum of Art. Nash, who has written a video column for High Performance magazine for four years, replaced Jacqueline Kain, now director of broadcasting for KCET Channel 28. . . . MOCA has elected six new board of trustees members: Joseph R. Austin, a lawyer and partner at Tuttle & Taylor; Judith F. Baca, artist and artistic director of the Social and Public Arts Resource Center; Anthony de los Reyes, lawyer and partner at Kern & Wooley; Thurston Twigg-Smith, president of the Honolulu Advertiser; Jerry W. Johnston, executive vice president of Security Pacific National Bank, and David Laventhol, president of The Times Mirror Co. . . . The County Museum of Art has elected three new trustees: Hannah Carter, who has been involved with several cultural and civic groups and with her husband, Edward, assembled what is considered the finest private American collections of 17th-Century Dutch paintings; William A. Mingst, a partner with the Oriole Group of personal investment management; and Hiroyuki Saito, senior vice president and general manager of the Pacific Southwest headquarters of Mitsui & Co. (U.S.A.) Inc.