Address
2233 North First Street Fresno CA 93703
Museum Store Hours
Wednesday- Friday
12pm-4pm
Saturday & Sunday
10am-4pm
Thank you for supporting The Fresno Art Museum!
FAM Store hours (online store purchase pickup times are during these hours as well):
Thursday-Sundays 10am-4pm.
The online Museum Store only offers store pick up (with the exception of event tickets and memberships).
Exhibition Catalog
In Winter/Spring 2022, the Fresno Art Museum will present a retrospective exhibition of the work of Northern California painter Chester Arnold entitled Reports to the Contrary: A Persistent Vision - Paintings 1971-2021 by Chester Arnold. The exhibited masterworks will span the years 1971 through 2021 and will come from the artist's personal collection, select private collectors, the Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, and Bay Area museums.
Chester Arnold was born in Santa Monica, California in 1952. From the age of five, he lived and went to school in Munich, Germany where his father, a linguist and field agent, worked for a United States Intelligence Unit. From 1957 to 1969, Arnold lived in a post-war atmosphere that profoundly affected his ideas about humankind and the world-forging sense of social responsibility that has seldom escaped expression in his paintings. His education was replete with studies in the humanities, but it was exposure to the great museums of Munich and Vienna that shaped a belief in the power of painting to communicate beyond words--a power that he has pursued ever since.
Upon graduation from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1988, Arnold began a fruitful teaching career (paralleling his studio practice) in classes taught at the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco State University, Sonoma State University, and for the first two decades of this century as a senior fine arts faculty member at the College of Marin in Kentfield, California.
Arnold has shown his work extensively from coast to coast, and his paintings can be found in many public collections, notably at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the San Jose Museum of Art, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art in Napa, California, the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, and the Seven Bridges Foundation in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Since 2003, Chester Arnold has been represented by the Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco where his work is seen regularly in both solo and group shows.
In 2008, the Fresno Art Museum Gift Shop closed its doors after being an institutional mainstay since the early 1970s. It was with great anticipation and excitement that we re-opened the FAM Museum Store on December 4, 2018. Michele Ellis Pracy, the Museum's Executive Director & Chief Curator, has invited selected local and regional artists to sell original artwork, one-of-a-kind jewelry, and artful utilitarian objects from lamps to soaps. The FAM Museum Store carries some unique ancillary products branded with the FAM logo. A children's section includes museum-relevant to-do projects, books, and art.
In the late 1940s, a group of local artists formed the Fresno Art League to provide a facility to exhibit and critique each other’s work and to share their enthusiasm for art. The League gathered support for their organization from the community, and in 1949, the Fresno Arts Center was incorporated. In 1960, after years of planning, the Fresno Arts Center building in Radio Park at First Street and Clinton Avenue was dedicated. The Fresno Arts Center became an active venue for art exhibitions and educational programs including artist talks, workshops, and art classes for children and adults. A mission statement, goals, and objectives were developed. In 1973 the Arts Center was granted accreditation by the American Association of Museums (now, American Alliance of Museums) after an extensive study of the organization, finances, staff expertise, programs, care and storage of the permanent collection, and physical facilities. In 1985 the Board of Trustees changed the Center’s name to the Fresno Arts Center and Museum. The name was changed again to the Fresno Art Museum in 1988, following a suggestion from the American Association of Museums that was made during the re-accreditation process. Over the ensuing years, the Museum has continued to maintain its accreditation, most recently being reaccredited in 2016.
Museum Store Hours
Wednesday- Friday
12pm-4pm
Saturday & Sunday
10am-4pm