Join us for a panel highlighting participants in The de Young Open 2020 to track the impact of the exhibition on Bay Area artists. Moderated by Sunny A. Smith, this panel features Cheryl Derricotte, Ron Saunders, and Rupy C. Tut.

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About the speakers

Cheryl Derricotte is a visual artist whose favorite mediums are glass and paper. Originally from Washington, DC, she lives and makes art in San Francisco, CA. Her art has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, and The San Francisco Chronicle. In 2021, she was awarded the commission to develop a monument to Harriet Tubman at the transit-oriented development Gateway at Millbrae Station, the first sculptural tribute to the abolitionist in glass. Entitled “Freedom’s Threshold,” the monument was unveiled on March 16, 2023. Cheryl currently serves as the 2023/2024 Kala Art Institute, Print Public: Municipal Artist-in-Residence for the City of Berkeley’s Climate Equity Pilot Program. 

Ron Moultrie Saunders, originally from New York, pursued landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. His art is featured in the San Francisco Arts Commission Civic Art Collection with permanent work located across the city. This year he completed two commissions for BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). His artwork has been in museums and galleries across the US, and he’s a longtime resident of San Francisco.

Sunny A. Smith (they/them), de Young Open 2023 exhibition juror and Bay Area artist and educator, has produced work for over 25 solo shows, exhibiting at museums including SFMOMA, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Palais de Tokyo, and MASS MoCA. Smith received the United States Artists Fellowship, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award, the Artadia Award, and the Fleishhacker Foundation Eureka Award. Their work is held in the collections of nearly forty museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Hammer Museum, Saatchi Gallery, and the Brooklyn Museum. Their work was acquired by the de Young in 2022. Smith currently serves as professor and dean of fine arts at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

Rupy C. Tut creates paintings on paper and linen using handmade pigments. Her work is rooted in personal history; Tut is a grandchild of Punjabi Sikh refugees, an immigrant, a mother, and a preservationist of traditional Indian painting (also known as miniature painting) techniques in use since 18th century AD. Tut’s meticulous line work explores the relationship to homeland, and the criteria of belonging as an immigrant and a woman. Tut has enjoyed solo exhibitions including Out of Place, Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco; Search and Rescue, Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco; A Recipe for Brown Skin, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA; and A Journey Back Home, Peel Art Gallery and Museum Archives, Ontario. Tut’s work is in the permanent collection of the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento; the de Young, San Francisco; and the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. Rupy C. Tut is represented by the Jessica Silverman Gallery in San Francisco, CA.

Ticket info

Seating is limited and unassigned. Program tickets are distributed on a first-come first-served basis in front of the Koret Auditorium an hour before the program begins. This does not include admission to the exhibition. 

Contact info

Public Programs
publicprograms@famsf.org
415.750.7694