GERMAN EXHIBITION AT SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM

“Three Centuries of German Painting and Drawing,” surveying a period of German history marked by great economic, political and social change, makes its only West Coast appearance at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Saturday through July 20. The exhibition of 91 works by 60 artists who lived from 1600 to 1900 was organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

The survey, drawn from collections of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, reflects changing art movements that mirror the preoccupations of succeeding generations: Baroque and Neo-Classical modes are followed by the later Romantic, Impressionist and Realist styles. Among artists whose works are shown: Johann Liss, Georg Flegel, Gottfried Von Wedig, Johann Konig, Caspar David Friedrich, Karl Blechen, Lovis Corinth, Max Lieberman, Max Slevogt and Wilhelm Leibl.

The collections of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum were assembled by the Cologne Canon and Professor of Theology Ferdinand Franz Wallraf, who bequeathed them in 1829. In 1854, Johann Heinrich Richartz, a Cologne merchant, donated funds for a building to house the art and the museum was opened in 1861.

Rainer Budde, director of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, will speak on “Three Centuries of German Art: An Overview,” at the Santa Barbara Museum on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. His lecture is presented in cooperation with the Goethe Institute, Los Angeles.

San Diego’s Museum of Photographic Arts presents a retrospective exhibition, “Arnold Newman: Five Decades.” Portraits of the famous and influential as well as early experiments in photographic abstraction are featured in the exhibition which includes 160 images in black-and-white and color.

According to museum director Arthur Olmann, who curated the exhibition, “Humanism, personal power and gestural immediacy merge with pure design and the nonverbal language of forms and balances, to create a pure modernist vision, deeply empowered by its devotion to photographic tradition.”

The exhibition which is scheduled to travel for three years, is accompanied by a 125-page hard-bound book published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

A slide lecture by Newman, “What is a Portrait?,” is set for next Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at Temple Beth Israel, 2512 3rd St., San Diego. General admission is $4, students/seniors $3, and MOPA members $ 2.50.

The fourth annual edition of “NEOFEST,” billed as “an international festival of works by 17 artists in nine interdisciplinary events incorporating dance, theater, performance art, music, film and other visual art forms,” starts today in the San Diego area.

Contributing artists come from Mexico City, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Milwaukee and San Diego.

The opening event, today and Monday at the Lyceum in Horton Plaza, is “Games,” a collaboration of choreographer Gilberte Meunier, visual artist Julie Keller and composer Miroslav Tadic, all from Los Angeles.

“Games” is based on a series of poems by contemporary Yugoslav writer Vasko Popa and is performed by a cast of eight, backed by recorded music.

On Friday and Saturday, at Sushi, is the world premiere of “Rosemary, That’s For Remembrance,” a performance work by San Diego artist Norma Jean Deak joined by Eleanor Antin and Mary Corrigan.

Closing the series at Sushi, on June 27 and 28, is a new work, “Passing Through,” written by Los Angeles artists Lin Hixson and Jane Dibbell. Live music by the Radio City Straight Shooters is composed by Chris Darrow, formerly of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. All performances start at 8 p.m. For a full schedule of the festival, call (619) 235-8466.

The Southwest Museum opens a new show titled “The Pasadena Collectors,” Tuesday through Nov. 2, as part of the City of Pasadena’s Centennial Celebration. Featured are major donations to the museum’s collections received from Pasadena benefactors between 1915 and 1945. These gifts include baskets made by Indian tribes of the Southwest and California, Zuni fetishes, Hopi Kachinas, Southwest Indian Pottery and textiles, Mexican masks, Northwest Coast Indian and Eskimo material and historic photographs.

The Pasadena collectors were a small but significant community devoted to preserving the arts and cultures of the West and Southwest. George Wharton James, A. C. Vroman, C. F. Saunders, Frederick W. Hodge, P. G. Gates and Grace Nicholson were adventurous collectors and chroniclers traveling to difficult and remote areas, sometimes at great personal risk.

Included in the show are photographs by Edward S. Curtis and vintage prints by Saunders. A small selection of watercolors by Eva Scott Fenyes, a Pasadena artist and early supporter of the museum, depicting historic structures of the San Gabriel Valley is on display in the museum’s lower lobby.

Visual Arts Organizations application deadline for National Endowment for the Arts Grants of up to $ 50,000 is June 13. Such grants are available to support contemporary visual art exhibitions, access to working facilities, and provision of services activities.

Priority is given to organizations which assure visual artists an integral role in policy development and programming, provide professional fees to artists and whose programs are of national or regional significance.

Over the last three years, application volume has remained steady at about 200 and about 60% of these applicant organizations have been funded with grants averaging almost $15,000. All eligible organizations are encouraged to apply. Guidelines are available from the NEA, Visual Arts Program,. 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W., Washington 20506. For information call Michael Giza at the Visual Arts Program: (202) 682-5448.