Manetti Shrem Museum of Art

Richard L. Nelson was the founder of the art department at UC Davis, and he recruited a faculty in the early 1960s that included highly successful artists such as Wayne Thiebaud, Robert Arneson, Roy De Forest, Manuel Neri, Roland Petersen and William T. Wiley. Several were associated with the Funk art genre. That phrase has since been embraced as a defining description by artists associated with UC Davis. For nearly 60 years, the art faculty hoped for and discussed the possibility of building a dedicated art museum, according to museum director Rachel Teagle. ==Financing==

Margrit Mondavi, widow of Napa Valley winemaker Robert Mondavi, made an initial $2 million donation to begin the project. ==Design==

The architects were Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu of the firm SO-IL of Brooklyn, who partnered with local architect Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne described the building: "Inside, a lobby with lightly polished concrete floors is lined with a sweeping curve of floor-to-ceiling glass. As you enter, a multipurpose room that can be arranged as an auditorium is off to the left, with classrooms, studios and museum offices straight ahead. To the right are the galleries, which fill rooms of varying sizes and heights and are topped with a ceiling of aluminum mesh, through which mechanical equipment is left visible." Described as a "perforated aluminum and steel roof that creates textured light and shadows throughout the grounds", it was inspired by the geometry of the farm fields that surround Davis. ==Collection==

The museum owns nearly 6,000 art objects, including many works by Bruce Nauman, a 1966 MFA graduate of the university. In addition to his financial support, Jan Shrem has also donated works of art, including sculptures from his collection, to the museum's collection. == See also ==