Comedian and art collector Steve Martin is teaming up with Ann Philbin, the recently retired director of L.A.’s Hammer Museum, to recenter the reputation of late actor and musician Martin Mull on his lifelong painting practice. The duo’s forthcoming exhibition, “Martin Mull: The Joys of Indoor/Outdoor Living” will hit the Santa Barbara Museum of Art next June through October, marking Mull’s first museum show since his presentation at the Las Vegas Art Museum, in 2006.
Mull shot to fame in 1977, while starring on the satirical talk show . He went on to lend his dry wit to Clue (1985), Roseanne (1988-97), and Arrested Development (2004-13). But, Mull actually started out as an artist, earning a BFA and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1965 and 1967, respectively. He made and exhibited oil paintings consistently until his death, in 2024.
The artist’s latest museum show is also the second curatorial collaboration between Martin and Philbin, who organized a Lawren Harris show at the Hammer in 2015. “The Joys of Indoor/Outdoor Living” took root when Philbin noticed a Mull painting hanging in Martin’s dining room. “It prompted me to do a little research,” she told the LA Times.
Martin Mull, Endgame (2014) Photo: © Estate of Martin Mull, courtesy of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
The resulting exhibition will present more than 50 of Mull’s drawings and paintings throughout SBMA’s 6,000 square-foot main galleries—mostly on loan from Mull’s estate, as well as his star-studded collectors, like actor-turned-poker-player Jennifer Tilly, filmmakers Daniel and Robin Greenspun, and, of course, Martin.
“Mull regularly exhibited with commercial galleries throughout his long active career as a painter, but many of these works haven’t been seen since they were first exhibited in those contexts,” SBMA’s Chief Curator James Glisson, who’s also helping with the show, told me via email. “These images will be a revelation for many because they have been out of the public eye for so long.”
Although Mull’s impeccably rendered, socially critical, and incisively humorous scenes resist common curatorial frameworks, Glisson said, several thematic groupings are slated to persist, “such as a hoped-for reunion of his Seven Deadly Sins [series] and a gallery that will focus on Mull’s luminous pencil drawings that were often careful studies for the paintings.”
In press materials for the show, Martin noted that Mull’s painterly talents coalesced in the last 20 years of his life “into tight, narrative paintings of a peculiar nature.”
“Mull’s work as an artist will certainly be his primary legacy,” Martin declared. He’ll also contribute a text to the show’s catalog.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
