USC Fisher Museum acquires etchings and drawings from local artist

The USC Fisher Museum of Art has acquired etchings, drawings and prints created by artist Dan McCleary for its permanent collection.

The acquisition demonstrates the museum’s interest in the versatility of McCleary, the founder and executive director of Art Division, a nonprofit offering professional arts training and academic support to young people in Los Angeles.

The donation from private collectors Dennis Ruiz and Mary Ann Ruiz includes McCleary’s first experiments with color etchings, including the lithograph “Chef” and “Gia Chiumento,” a monoprint that were completed in Oakland.

“We begin to understand him as a draftsman: Someone who makes prints and someone who draws,” said Selma Holo, director of the Fisher Museum. “What we were able to learn about him in the past was purely painting, which of course is magnificent, but this is another side of him.”

Inspired by Botticelli’s portrait of a young man, McCleary’s work has a “timeless aura,” in the words of Los Angeles Times critic Christopher Knight.

A majority of the donated prints were completed in Oaxaca, Mexico, as was “Erica de Casas,” McCleary’s first color etching.

The artist’s focus on floral subjects in some of his etchings and prints is a deviation from his portraiture and figure drawing as shown in “Everyday Sacred,” the artist’s solo show at the Fisher Museum in 2015. The exhibition included etchings titled “Golden Rod” and “Mixed Flowers.”

The acquisition was announced as McCleary’s Art Division students are showing their own work in “USC Fisher Museum/Art Division: Artists in Residence.” Many of the young artists’ works were inspired by McCleary, who was their mentor.