The 2017 Grandparent Portrait Show, the fifth in a series of biennial exhibitions of secondary school student artwork to communities of the greater Santa Barbara area served by the Student Art Fund, will take place at the Faulkner Gallery from April 2 – 30, 2017. The works pay tribute to the artists’ grandparents or other significant elders in a variety of media, including drawings, paintings, sculptures, photographs, and assemblage.

“Relationships between grandparents and their grandchildren are unique, significant and often fleeting. The Grandparent Portrait show…aims to strengthen and preserve those bonds.”
— Commentator Diane Bock, the NPR show, California Report (KQED)

Grandparent Portrait Show Schedule:

April 2 through April 30, 2017 The Grandparents Portrait Show will be open to the public in the Faulkner Gallery at the Main Branch of the Santa Barbara Public Library 40 Anapamu Street Santa Barbara, CA.  The gallery is open 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM Monday-Thursday, 10:00 AM – 5:30 PM Friday and Saturday, 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM Sunday.

April 7, 2017 Reception and awards ceremony from 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.

This year’s Grandparent Portrait Show is juried by retired art teacher John Houchin.
Read more about John Houchin.

“Before seeing the work selected for the 2017 Grandparent Portrait show I felt confident that choosing a dozen prize winners would be an easy task. But after seeing the diversity of these highly professional works I soon recognized it would be no easy feat. There were so many highly skilled artists representing sculpture, photography, collage, mixed media, painting and drawing that I made an appeal to the committee to allow an additional five Honorable Mention awards, and they graciously agreed.  The show had a record number of works, but if these are any indication of the caliber of art education that is offered in our community, we should all be grateful and very proud of students and teachers as well.”
John Houchin, Juror 2017 Grandparent Portrait Show

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The 2017 Exhibition Gallery

Working under the guidance of their art teachers, young artists created over 400 portraits in media ranging from paintings in watercolors or acrylics, drawings in ink, pencil, or charcoal, photography, collages, mixed media, and clay sculptures for consideration. From these, 180 finalists were selected by the judges to be a part of the 2017 exhibition at the Faulkner Gallery, from April 2 – 30, 2017.  You can view the pieces in the 2017 exhibition here.

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The 2017 Award Winners

Awards of Merit for twelve outstanding entries were announced at the Grandparent Portrait Show Reception on Friday, April 7. Five students were selected to receive ribbons of Honorable Mention. These awards are designated through a selection process that includes SAF Committee members—many are retired art teachers—and a professional juror.  The awards are made possible by our generous award sponsors, listed below. View the work of the award-winning student artists here.

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Thank You to Our Sponsors

The Grandparent Portrait Show is funded in part by Santa Barbara Beautiful, the Community Arts Grant Program using funds provided by the City of Santa Barbara in partnership with the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission, Ty Warner, and the Santa Barbara Art Association Student Art Fund.  

Our appreciation goes to the following award sponsors:

American Riviera Bank • The Aquiesse Company • Channel City Camera Club • Gwen Taylor Dawson • Chip and Lynn Foose • Gene Hill • The Kovacs Family • La Arcada Plaza • Linda Love • Thomas and Willa Mann • Santa Barbara Art Association • Worldview Pictures