Three displays of art by elders are showcased in this exhibition presented by the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco in cooperation with the San Francisco Bay Area Ministry to Nursing Homes (MNH), a community-based organization founded in 1985.

The triad of art displays includes the Tenth Annual Art with Elders exhibition, which features the art of 90 nursing home residents, as well as a showing of the work of prominent Bay Area artist Raymond Saunders, who has been designated by MNH as Bay Area Elder Artist of the Year.

The five paintings and eight watercolors by Saunders in the exhibition are lent by the Stephen Wirtz Gallery and by a private collector. Saunders’s paintings were previously featured at the de Young museum in 1995 in a one-man show titled Raymond Saunders: Black Paintings, and his work is included in the Fine Arts Museums’ permanent collections.

Nursing home facilities whose artists are participating in the exhibition include Laguna Honda Hospital, which has its own program called Art with Elders at LHH, as well as an artist in residence, Mark Campbell. Among the other facilities whose residents are providing art for the exhibition are Eden Villa, Hayes Valley Care, and San Francisco Community Convalescent.

In addition, the exhibition includes for the first time Elder Arts Celebrations, which features the work of alumni, faculty, and students from San Francisco’s teaching institutions. Works of art by artists from the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco State University, and City College of San Francisco will be on view in this segment of Elder Arts 2000. Artists whose work will be on display include James Melchert, Carlos Villa, Inez Storer, and Renee Harwin, among others.

Elder Arts 2000 is one of the final exhibitions that will be on view at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum before it closes to the public on December 31, 2000. The museum will reopen in 2005 in a new, state-of the-art facility in the same location in Golden Gate Park.