The Yates Collection

An exhibition of works on long-term loan to the Museum from the Yates Foundation, this exhibit showcases exquisite works by Matisse, Pissarro, Picasso, Chagall and others.

featured image: Hugues Claude Pissarro, Interior Bourgeois,1941, Oil on Canvas

Statement by the Yates Art Foundation:

The Yates Art Foundation is dedicated to organizations exactly like the Napa Valley Museum, who invest in their community’s enrichment by providing them with the experience of Fine Art.

There are many different reasons for doing what we do, represented by the diversity within our collection. The one thing that we all share, is the desire to be positive contributors in the continuing stories of our artists, their art and those who come to enjoy the experience. Every time you attend an exhibition, you become a part of that art’s history, just as much as it becomes part of yours.

The profundity of our connection to art, is not always immediately realized. For instance, once, when I was a child, my mother handed me an article in tears. She said that someone took a hammer to the Pietà. She explained to me that it was a marble sculpture of Mary holding the crucified Jesus. She said that she saw it once and it captured her, adding that it was the most beautiful and moving thing she had ever seen. My mother was not particularly religious, artistically inclined nor easily driven to tears, and yet …

I am not sure that there has ever been a person who has been immune to the effects of art; has never been moved or intrigued. Art is many things to many people. Art can be used as a tool or weapon. Art can be provocative. Art can be cathartic and therapeutic. Art can segregate and isolate humans into rigid identities, yet, art at times, will transcend all that keeps us separate. Most importantly, art is an interaction between the artist and those who experience the work, with no two people experiencing the same piece, in the same way.

“What you take into your hands, you take into your heart” so having seen, it becomes part of you and, believe it or not, you become a piece of the art’s story. My mother, at that moment in time, those many, many years ago, realized that having seen and having been so deeply moved by the Pietà, she was connected; that a piece of her was smashed by that same hammer. The Pietà, and its continuing story, had become significant events within her life. We want to promote that deep connection with as many souls as possible.

When you are moved by the colors of Marc Chagall, the duality of intense complication and simplicity of Pablo Picasso or the work of any amazing artist within our collection, the experience becomes a piece of your history; it is assimilated into who you are. The Yates Art Foundation and Napa Valley Museum have the honor of being part of our artist’s stories with each exhibition. Together we make it possible for more people to share, not only being a part of the amazing experience that this work brings, but also forever a part of its history. The Yates Art Foundation and the Napa Valley Museum invite you to be involved in our art’s story, and to allow it to evolve and enhance yours.