Wine Country Museums: “Napa Valley Collects” focuses on Napa Valley’s elite art collectors, at the Napa Valley Museum through May 26, 2013

Ann Trinca, curator of “Napa Valley Collects,” at the exhibition’s opening with Rob Ceballos, Director of the Hess Art Collection. Behind them is Alan Rath’s “Huge Pi 500” (1996) aluminum, acrylic, custom electronics, LEDs—a digital sculpture that clicks through the infinite digits of the mathematical series Pi. Rath gave a presentation on his art and electronic media at the Hess Collection on April 27, 2013. Photo: Geneva Anderson

Margrit Mondavi, Jan Shrem, Francis and Eleanor Coppola, Norman and Norah Stone, Donald Hess, Ronald and Anita Wornick, Peter and Kirsten Bedford—you’ve heard their names and likely attended some Bay Area cultural event they’ve bankrolled.  “Napa Valley Collects,” at the Napa Valley Museum in Yountville, through next Sunday, May 26^th 2013, offers a unique chance to see the artworks they live.  This important exhibition features 65 exquisite and quite diverse artworks representing 53 artists from 30 Napa Valley collectors, many of them well-known patrons of the arts and some who are just starting their collecting journey.  Fifty-six of these artworks, including pieces from Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Alexander Rodchenko, Helen Frankenthaler, Wayne Thiebaud, Joan Brown, Matthew Barney, Stephen DeStabler, and Peter Voulkos are installed in private homes, so this is the public’s only chance to view them.  Several years in gestation, the exhibition is guest curated by Ann Trinca, of Napa, and is presented in partnership with Arts Council Napa Valley and Visit Napa Valley.  Sadly, there is no catalogue but grab a guide off the counter and you’ll get some useful background information on the collectors and artworks represented.  Below, is a photo gallery that includes some of the collectors and artworks in the exhibition.

Best times to visit: mornings on weekends or weekdays to avoid wine country traffic jams.  Worse times:  weekend afternoons and evenings—extreme traffic coming from St. Helena and around Sonoma.

To read ARThound’s previous coverage of “Napa Valley Collects,” click here.

Details: Situated mid-valley in the historic town of Yountville, between St. Helena and Napa, Napa Valley Museum is located at 55 Presidents Circle in Yountville next to the Napa Valley Performing Arts Center at Lincoln Theater.  Hours:  Tuesday-Sunday from 10am-4pm.  Admission:  $5; $3.50 seniors; $2.50 youth under 17.  Info: www.NapaValleyMuseum.org.

Philanthropist and wine celeb Margrit Mondavi, glowing at 87, is Napa Valley’s beloved grande dame. She lent Wayne Thiebaud’s “Camelia Cake” from her extensive collection of art. Photo: Geneva Anderson

Jan Shrem of Clos Pegase Winery with painting “Pegasus” by Odilon Redon. Photo: courtesy Napa Valley Museum

Norah and Norman Stone, of San Francisco and Calistoga, lent an early Matthew Barney photo, “Delay of Game (Manual) B,” 1991, silver gelatin print in prosthetic plastic frame. Photo: Geneva Anderson

Norman and Norah Stone, of San Francisco and Calistoga, snapped up Matthew Barney’s “Delay of Game (Manual) B, a 1991 gelatin silver print in a prosthetic plastic frame (14 5/8 x 13 x ¼ inches) before the art world had even heard of Matthew Barney. The model is wearing an early Norma Kamali bathing suit. Photo: Geneva Anderson

Angela Hoxsey is the youngest of 30 collectors represented in “Napa Valley Collects.” She encountered Willard Dixon’s urban landscape, “Behind Home Depot,” (2003) at St. Helena’s I Wolk Gallery and then thought about it for 2 years before buying it. Photo: Geneva Anderson

Willard Dixon, “Behind Home Depot,” (2003) Photo: Geneva Anderson

Ronald and Anita Wornick, of Healdsburg and Oakland, have an important conceptual craft collection. They lent two works by Northern Irish glass artist Clifford Rainey. “Shy Boy” (2005) is one of series of artworks commenting on his boyhood in Northern Ireland. Visible inside the torso is a gold-leafed bottle, referring to the artist’s ability to speak freely only when drinking. Photo: Geneva Anderson

Ray DeForest’s “Journey to the Far Canine Range on the Unexplored Territory” (1988), Bedford Press, 12-fold accordion book, acrylic, water color, charcoal, pastel, graphite on paper, Collection of Peter and Kirsten Bedford.

Detail from Ray DeForest’s “Journey to the Far Canine Range on the Unexplored Territory” (1988), Bedford Press, 12-fold accordion book, acrylic, water color, charcoal, pastel, graphite on paper, Collection of Peter and Kirsten Bedford.

Viola Frey, untitled (Blue Buddha), ceramic, 1988, from the di Rosa collection. Rene di Rosa (1919-2010) purchased several of Frey’s works for his collection of nearly 2,000 works by over 800 artists, considered the most significant holding of Bay Area art in the world. Incorporated as a non-profit in 2000, art di Rosa, is in Carneros Valley. Viola Frey (1933-2004), former chairwoman of the ceramics dept. of California College of the Arts, Oakland, and known for her brightly colored and larger-than-life glazed clay sculptures, helped elevate ceramics beyond figurines and decorative plates in the 1960’s. Rene di Rosa purchased several of Frey’s works for his collection of nearly 2,000 works by over 800 artists, considered the most significant holding of Bay Area art in the world. Photo: Geneva Anderson

Viola Frey, untitled (Blue Buddha), ceramic, 1988, from the di Rosa collection

Joan Brown’s untitled gouache on paper nude, 1974, lent by Francis and Eleanor Coppola. Photo: Geneva Anderson

Enrique Chagoya, “What Appropriation Has Given Me (Fritas y Dieguitos)” Collection of Austin and Sara Hills

Ronald Davis, “Lambada Black Slabette, Nu Yellow Slabette, Epsilon Gray Slabette,” Cel-vinyl acrylic copolymer, 1985. From the collection of Louise Newquist. In 2008, this installtion, the stunning minimalist Carneros estate it hung in and approximately 75 other prime pieces of contemporary art were all for sale as a package. Newquist, then 80, was moving. Ronald Davis, a celebrated CA-born abstractionist, is concerned with craftsmanship and issues of space, scale, detail and color relationships and illusion. In the 1980’s, he did a series of “Slabettes.” Photo: Geneva Anderson

Peter VandenBerge’s huge, colorful and stately ceramic head (1992) from the collection of Richard Meese and Liz Christensen, was a crowd favorite at the opening of “Napa Valley Collects.” Photo: Geneva Anderson