di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art maintains a permanent collection of works by Northern California artists that was originally collected by Rene di Rosa (1919-2010) and Veronica di Rosa (1934–1991). The collection contains notable works by artists living or working in the San Francisco Bay Area from mid-twentieth century to the early twenty-first century, highlighting a story of experimentation of the artists of the region. It is displayed in part, on a rotating basis, in the galleries at di Rosa.
This page represents a just a portion of di Rosa’s rich permanent collection. Stay tuned as we continue to populate this page with artworks from our collection.
di Rosa strives to be a resource for educators, students and lifelong learners. For research inquiries, please contact curatorial@dirosaart.org.
Girl Standing (Girl with Red Nose)
Painting
Nude woman in reds, blues, whites
48
Oil on Canvas
Painting
AR0048
Charles Campbell Gallery
Purchase
Joan Brown
1962
Signature
Title
Date
Verso
Joan Brown, Girl Standing (Girl with Red Nose), 10/62
Object
60 in
48 in
The Incorrect Museum - Ongoing
March 2026
Far Out
August 2 - October 4, 2025, di Rosa SF
The Incorrect Museum: Redux
May 13, 2022 - 2023, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa
Joan Brown
November 19, 2022 - March 12, 2023, SF MoMA May 27, 2023 - September 24, 2023, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA February 7, 2024 - May 1, 2024, Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, CA
The Incorrect Museum: Vignettes from the di Rosa Collection
April 17, 2021 - April 17, 2022, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa
Viola Frey: Center Stage
February 23 - December 28, 2019, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa
Be Not Still: Living in Uncertain Times (Part 1)
January 27 - May 27, 2018, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa
The Rat Bastard Protective Association
October 1 2016 - January 7, 2017, The Landing, Los Angeles
This Kind of Bird Flies Backward: Paintings by Joan Brown
October 14, 2011 - March 11, 2012, San Jose Museum of Art
The Collection in Context: Bay Area Figurative Art
July 8 – September 26, 2006, di Rosa Preserve
Dating from early in Brown’s career, this work reflects the aesthetic and pedagogical training she received at the California School of Fine Arts, where she trained in the San Francisco school of abstract expressionism. By 1962, like her teacher Elmer Bischoff, however, Brown had begun depicting stripped-down, featureless human figures that skirted the boundary between abstraction and figuration. During this period, Brown lived with her husband Manuel Neri in the legendary Painterland building at 2322-24 Fillmore St., next door to Jay DeFeo and her husband Wally Hedrick. Their apartments –connected by a door-sized hole in the adjoining wall –served as an important social center for San Francisco’s beat generation.