This exhibition features the work of graphic designer and fine artist Keith Puccinelli, AKA Pooch, alongside selections of work from the folk and contemporary art collection he and his wife, Frances Garvin Puccinelli, built over their 33-artful-years together. Pooch was a long-time Santa Barbara resident who began his artistic career as an award-wining graphic designer with his studio Puccinelli Design (1983-1995). In 1998, after surviving cancer and at the urging of his wife, he began working full-time as a fine artist and became an active and recognized contributor to the Southern California art scene. This exhibition investigates how humor, tragedy, and wit animated Puccinelli’s art and design. Furthermore, the exhibition situates Puccinelli’s career within the constellation of his local and regional contemporaries including Dane Goodman, Hugh Margerum, Hilary Brace, Joan Tanner, Richard Ross, Lily Guild as well as artists like Claes Oldenberg, Philip Guston, Annie Toliver, Wayne Thiebaud, Chip Kidd and many others who influenced his practice more broadly. POOCH celebrates the extraordinary gift of more than 350 drawings, sculptures, video, sketchbooks, and design archives from Puccinelli’s estate to the AD&A Museum’s collection in 2018. 

 

Keith Julius Puccinelli (b. United States, 1950-2017) received his Bachelor of Fine Art from San Jose State University in 1973. As a fine artist and self-taught graphic designer, he founded Puccinelli Design in 1983 in downtown Santa Barbara and ran a successful studio until 1995 when he closed the business to pursue other creative interests. For more than 40 years, Pooch has exhibited artworks in numerous solo and group exhibitions at galleries, museums, and contemporary art spaces. His work is included in private and public collections such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art, Wilding Museum of Art & Nature, Weatherspoon Museum of Art, and the Art, Design & Architecture Museum. 

 

POOCH: The Art Full Life of Keith Julius Puccinelli is organized by the Art, Design & Architecture Museum and is curated by Meg Linton. The exhibition is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Keith and Frances Puccinelli Trust. 

 

Image: Keith Puccinelli, The Ascension (clown series), 1999. Ink on paper, 18 x 24 inches. Estate of Frances Garvin and Keith Julius Puccinelli, Collection of the Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara.