Skinned: The Art of Robert Cremean
May 25 – September 9, 2007

Heroic in scale with numerous multi-dimensional components, the sculptural installations of Robert Cremean are meant to be experienced, not just viewed. This exhibition, drawn from a recent gift to the Crocker’s permanent collection, consists of a career-spanning survey of the artist’s key works in wood, bronze and marble as well as paintings, drawings, ceramics and prints.

Long considered one of California’s most significant sculptors, Cremean embraced the human figure early on in his work. If his work has one single, overarching motivation, that would be, according to the artist himself, to give saliency to the human form and, in so doing, remind us that we matter and thus challenge us to be better.  Although Cremean's work can be understood and appreciated on formal and technical levels, aesthetics and craftsmanship serve the larger purpose of transmitting the artist’s own autobiographical and spiritual struggle with finding man’s place, with inspiration and art making, with aging and with dying.