FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Nada Fakhreddine, exhibition curator
Sasse Museum of Art
626-3193318 | nadaeddine@yahoo.com | sasseartmuseum.org
Sasse Museum of Art Presents Art Professors, an Exhibition of 21 Artist-Educators from Southern California Colleges and Universities
Exhibition on view August 1 – September 26, 2026, at the Sasse Museum of Art in Pomona, California. Free admission.
POMONA, Calif. – The Sasse Museum of Art will present Art Professors, an exhibition bringing together 22 artists who teach in the art and photography programs of 19 colleges and universities across Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties. The exhibition opens August 7 and runs through September 26, 2026, with free admission throughout its run.
The exhibition takes its spirit from a line by educator and author Alexandra K. Trenfor: “The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don’t tell you what to see.” That ethic of guided discovery shapes both the exhibition’s premise and the museum’s broader mission as a space that enables encounters between art and viewer, rather than dictating how a work should be read.
Art Professors gathers a particular cross-section of the art world: artists who divide their days between the classroom, the studio, and the darkroom, teaching hands-on fine arts and vocational practice while pursuing their own creative work in the hours between classes and critiques. The institutions represented range from dedicated art schools to research universities to community colleges, and the artists include both full-time faculty and adjunct instructors.
The works on view span painting, sculpture, photography, and other media, moving from the studio to the gallery to the city street. Rather than presenting these artists through the lens of their teaching, the exhibition offers a chance to encounter them as makers in their own right – to meet the person behind the podium and the voice guiding the critique.
“Art Professors carries forward the spirit of the Sasse, a space committed to enabling encounters, to sparking those love stories between art and viewer,” said Gene Sasse, Founder and Director of the Sasse Museum of Art. “This show opens a door into a particular community of makers, offering a generous view of their shared pursuit.”
Participating Artists
Elysabeth Bell, Melissa Bowder Beck, Quinton Bemiller, Rochelle Botello, Brice Bischoff, Stephen Childs, Dyane Duffy, Rebecca Hamm, Negin Hedayat, Mark James, Melissa Macias, Lisa M. Martin, Robin Mitchell, Hagop Najarian, Jonathan Puls, Amy Santoferraro, Gene Sasse, Olivia Stude, Terrill Thomas, Navai Toly, Nicola Vruwink.
Exhibition Details
What: Art Professors
When: August 1 – September 26, 2026
Where: Sasse Museum of Art, 300 South Thomas Street, Pomona, CA 91766
Hours: Friday – Sunday, 1–4 p.m.
Admission: Free
Artist Receptions: Sunday, August 16 and Sunday, September 20, 2026
About the Sasse Museum of Art
The Sasse Museum of Art is a volunteer-run, 501(c)(3) nonprofit museum in Pomona, California, offering free admission to the public. Founded in 2013 in Upland as the Inland Empire Museum of Art and renamed and relocated to Pomona in 2021, the museum produces approximately 24 exhibitions annually and maintains a permanent collection of more than 2,000 works. It has published 67 exhibition catalogs distributed to readers in more than 60 countries. The museum holds Blue Star Museum and NARM designations, and its gallery space is donated by the Tessier family. Learn more at sasseartmuseum.org.
