The Fine Arts Gallery Gets A New Name

Cal State LA’s Fine Arts Gallery is Renamed to Honor Alumni Ronald H. Silverman

Joshua Letona, Contributing Writer

June 17, 2019

Tom Wesselmann’s Study for Mouth No. 4 is the first piece of artwork displayed at the Pop Culture exhibit at Cal State LA’s newly renamed fine arts gallery titled the Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery

The Fine Arts Gallery changed its name to the Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery on May 9, 2019.

Ronald H. Silverman was a Cal State LA alumni who earned himself a master’s degree in 1955. He was also a professor at Cal State LA, eventually becoming chair of the Department of Art. He worked for three decades, writing books and setting up the Ronald Silverman Endowed Scholarship Fund which gives aid to students within the art department.

Ronald H. Silverman passed away on Oct. 14, 2017.

Through an endowment from the Silverman family, his son Jeffrey Silverman and daughter-in-law Amelia Perez-Silverman, Cal State LA renamed the Fine Arts Gallery to honor Ronald Silverman.

Director of the Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery Dr. Mika Cho mentioned that name change came already as a part of recreating the gallery.

“The gallery has been transformed since 2014. Before I became gallery director, I was [chair of the Arts department],” said Dr. Cho.

“One of my focuses was that the gallery is like the base of the art department. I think we had a breakthrough in 2015 and 2016, having really big audiences from the community,” she added.

Prior to the name change, the gallery had exhibited famous artists like Frank Romero, a Latino artist known mostly for his murals around Los Angeles, and Mark Steven Greenfield, an African American visual artist.

Dr. Cho mentioned that she wanted to bring artists’ work from not only the local community, but internationally as well, to “represent a diverse pool of artists” and “put their name out there.”

The gallery has also been a home for students and alumni to showcase their work as various exhibits throughout the semester.

“I have to represent students’ work. There’s always the ‘Undergraduate Senior Projects Exhibition’ and then there’s the ‘Graduate Theses Project Exhibition,’” said Dr. Cho.

Over the next year or so, Dr. Cho plans to have more breakthroughs with the gallery, like an exhibit next summer that will feature environmental art.

The Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery is open with its current exhibit: ‘Pop Culture: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation’ which will be available from June 1 to Aug. 2.

The gallery is open Monday through Friday from noon to 5 p.m.

About the Contributors

Joshua Letona, Editor-in-Chief

Starting at the University Times in Spring 2019, Joshua Letona has worked his way as an intern to three different editors positions and now, Editor-in-Chief. He’s contributed to over 70 articles at the UT, along with reinventing the Culture section. Joshua’s passions lie in storytelling as he strives to be a filmmaker and entertainment journalist.

Marisa Vasquez, Editor-in-Chief

Marisa Martinez formerly worked as Editor-in-Chief at the Corsair Newspaper at Santa Monica College where she studied her way out of the community college to Cal State LA. There, she join the TVFM Journalism program to further her studies in News/Media while functioning as the Editor-in-Chief for the weeks ahead and working alongside with her fellow reporters and photographers.