San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art Honors 50 Years Of Creative Growth Aiding Artists With Disabilities

The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed in 1990 meaning the U.S. was routinely traveling to space before establishing federal protections banning discrimination against people with disabilities. Shockingly, any American over the age of 34 has lived in an America where discrimination against people with disabilities was not only widespread, but allowed.

The United States was not an outlier in its callous treatment of people with disabilities, in fact, the Americans with Disabilities Act stands as the first civil rights legislation in the world to ban discrimination against people with disabilities. The rest of the world has been even slower in doing so.

Decades before the ADA, against a backdrop of political activism in the Bay Area–Black Panthers, Red Power, anti-war, the Chicano Movement–and the rising visibility of the disability rights movement, Creative Growth Art Center was founded in Berkeley, CA as the first U.S. organization dedicated to supporting artists with developmental disabilities. Today, 50 years later, Creative Growth continues serving as an international and national model in the field of art and disability.

In honor of Creative Growth’s milestone anniversary, the museum presents “Creative Growth: The House that Art Built,” on view through October 6, 2024. The exhibition features a vibrant selection of recent SFMOMA acquisitions from Creative Growth artists.

“The Bay Area has a rich history of art and disability justice, and Creative Growth was founded in its midst,” Nancy Lim, Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture at SFMOMA, told Forbes.com. “Since its opening, the organization has served hundreds of artists with remarkable practices that have contributed significantly to artistic dialogues in the Bay Area and internationally.”

Groundwork for the exhibition was set in fall of 2023 when SFMOMA announced a partnership with Creative Growth encompassing the acquisition of more than 100 works created by artists associated with the organization; the development of two exhibitions with Creative Growth artists; and the presentation of a series of events activated over the coming three years. Additionally, SFMOMA acquired works from Creative Growth’s two Bay Area peer organizations, with 31 objects from San Francisco-based Creativity Explored and 12 from Richmond-based NIAD (Nurturing Independence through Artistic Development).

“The acquisition and exhibition builds on years of research by colleagues across the museum; however, the scale of last year’s acquisition was critical for recognizing the historic role of Creative Growth, Creativity Explored, and NIAD,” Lim said. “This is just the first step, and the museum is committed to continued engagement throughout this year as we celebrate Creative Growth’s 50th anniversary and beyond.”

Together, the acquisitions make SFMOMA home to one of the largest collections of art by artists with disabilities, a historic moment of recognition for a group of artists long underrecognized by the art world. They now reside side-by-side with Matisse, Rivera, Kahlo, and Pollock.

“I think making art helps everyone, but it can be particularly powerful for people with disabilities who are often silenced in mainstream culture,” Creative Growth Director Emeritus Tom Di Maria told Forbes.com. “When given the chance to be creative and expressive, their voices can become especially strong and impactful. Communication is central to what many artists do, and this power is clearly evident in the work of Creative Growth artists.”

More than 80 recently acquired works from Creative Growth artists spanning acrylic painting, oil pastel drawing, ceramics, sculpture and film, dating from 1981 to 2021 are on view in the show which also includes archival material highlighting the organization’s history and ongoing impact on the arts and disability movement, and the art world more broadly.

Florence and Elias Katz

Bay Area tech startups launching from their garages have become a trope of American business. Creative Growth’s origins are similar.

Florence and Elias Katz, an artist and psychologist respectively, founded Creative Growth in the garage of their Berkeley home. They outlined a radical vision in their founding documents:

“Our philosophy is that each person has the right to the richest and fullest development of which they are capable. Only then can society reach its fullest potential. Since we believe that creativity is the highest actualization of human functioning, it is of paramount importance to provide an environment in which creativity is appreciated, stimulated, and encouraged. Creativity is a vital living force within each individual.”

Creative Growth’s Gallery actively promotes the artists’ work within the contemporary art world through on-site exhibitions, collaborations with outside galleries for exhibitions and artist representation, participation in art fairs, and the facilitation of the inclusion of artists’ work in international institutional exhibitions and permanent collections. As a non-profit gallery, all artwork sales directly support the artists and Creative Growth, which uses the proceeds to purchase materials and keep the program running.

The organization has grown to serve more than 140 artists each week in its studios and has elevated artists’ work to elite museums–including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.–and major exhibition venues around the globe, not least of which, the Venice Biennale.

“Elias Katz was deeply interested in human potential and engagement. His wife Florence saw creativity as a powerful tool for expression. Together, they started a radical experiment to engage formerly institutionalized people with disabilities in a creative art studio and gallery,” Di Maria explains of the couple’s interest in helping people with disabilities. “Creative Growth embodies these ideas of potential and expression. The marriage of these two ideas is evident in our organization’s name– creativity and growth.”

The exhibition’s name comes from how Creative Growth moved out of the Katzes’ garage.

“‘The House That Art Built’ is from a flyer announcing Creative Growth’s move to its current home, a former auto repair shop in Oakland,” Lim explained. “Eight years after Creative Growth’s founding they were able to purchase the building thanks to the tremendous support from Bay Area artists and collectors. Dozens, if not hundreds, of artists donated work to benefits and auctions including Robert Arneson, Robert Bechtle, Joan Brown, William Wiley, and so many more. Artists are always there first, revealing to us what is important.”

Legendary SFMOMA trustee Phyllis Wattis was the biggest purchaser of Creative Growth art, paying for it with General Electric stock that funded the endowment for Creative Growth and enabled the Katzes to purchase the building and develop a permanent center.

“Because of this, the Katzes called Creative Growth ‘the house that art built,’” Lim added. “We love how this draws deep connections to so many foundational artists and supporters of the museum and foregrounds the importance of community. Our hope is that we can draw out more of these relationships over time at the museum.”

William Scott Commission

In conjunction with “The House that Art Built,” SFMOMA presents a major commission by Creative Growth artist William Scott (b. 1964, San Francisco). On view through October 6, 2024, the commission is part of the museum’s ongoing Bay Area Walls initiative, a series of site-responsive wall projects by local artists that actively engage with pressing contemporary issues.

Scott’s largest painting to date–32-feet across–the mural merges two of his abiding interests: map-like renderings of San Francisco and portraits of the people who populate his life and dreams. Scott and his mother appear in the artwork as youthful versions of themselves, smiling alongside members of their church and the musician Diana Ross.

The background of the painting reveals the Alice Griffith public housing development near the city’s Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, where the artist was raised. Scott’s realism expresses hopefulness and fantasy, culminating in a monumental celebration of “Praise Frisco,” his name for the new San Francisco he envisions for the future.

The commission can be seen in the entryway to SFMOMA’s second floor galleries, located within the museum’s free, art-filled public space.

Excitingly, many of the Creative Growth artists with work on view in “The House that Art Built” remaining working and living in the Bay Area, like Scott.

“At the opening and during subsequent visits, the exhibiting artists were energized and amazed to see their work in a museum. It’s a powerful moment for any artist to have their work shown in a leading contemporary museum, especially for those who have been marginalized,” Di Maria said. “The engagement from viewers has been fantastic, showing how art connects us and hopefully inspiring art institutions to reconsider who the artists of our era are.”