On November 27, 1978, San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk—California’s first openly gay elected official—was shot five times. Milk’s traumatic death was still raw some ten years later when J. Michael Bewley, an employment lawyer in San José, walked into the backroom of a San Francisco gallery and saw Five Times for Harvey (1982), a series of drawings by American sculptor and painter Robert Arneson (1930 – 1992) that boldly narrated the political life and legacy of Harvey Milk. Though unlike the artworks Bewley had been collecting to that point, Five Times for Harvey went home with him and dramatically altered the course of his collecting over the next three decades.

In 2016, J. Michael Bewley generously donated Arneson’s influential work to the San José Museum of Art, along with eleven other pieces, many of which are on view for the first time in Rise Up! Social Justice in Art from the Collection of J. Michael Bewley. Alongside selections from his personal collection, the exhibition celebrates Bewley’s gift to the museum and the progressive ethos of his collecting vision. Arresting human forms and potent expressions of identity unite paintings, prints, sculptures, and textiles. Resilience and radicality resound through the individually powerful works that together present a rallying cry—rise up!

Bold figurative expression of identity unites paintings, prints, sculptures, and textiles by Robert Arneson, Sadie Barnette, Squeak Carnwath, Enrique Chagoya, Dorothy Cross, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Lesley Dill, Marlene Dumas, George Grosz, Wangechi Mutu, Chris Ofili, Tino Rodriguez, Alison Saar, Mickalene Thomas, and Kara Walker. Resilience and radicalism resound through these powerful works. Collectively, they issue a call to action—rise up!

Rise Up! Social Justice in Art from the Collection of J. Michael Bewley is organized by Kathryn Wade, curatorial associate.