Selections from the Bud Knapp Collection

Exhibition Statement

The Budd Knapp collection features artists whose work represented dramatic shifts in the direction of American art in the 1960s and formed the foundations for postmodern expression today. The community had the rare opportunity to view works from some of the country’s most important artists including Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, and Norman Bluhm.

The Schneider Museum was the recipient of a loan of major contemporary paintings from the collection of Bud Knapp, a philanthropist and art collector from Los Angeles. Knapp amassed a collection of significant painting and sculpture by American artists. The focus of the collection is on artists whose work represented dramatic shifts in the directions of American art in the 1960s and formed the foundations for the postmodern expression of today.

This first exhibition featured work by Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, and Norman Bluhm. The Jasper Johns work is entitled Black Target. It represents a continuation of the “Target Series” that Johns produced in the early 1960s. The importance of the work lies in Johns defiance of the basic tenets of modernism. With the “Target Series,” Johns began to introduce mundane, everyday objects as subject matter for art leading the way to the Pop Art phenomena. The era of Pop Art is represented by Roy Lichtenstein’s Interior with Red Wall. The large 11-foot painting is rendered in Lichtenstein’s signature comic book style and comments on the “tasteful” upscale interior design of the 1990s.

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