Bay Area Celebrates Buddhist Art

January 4, 2004

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2004/01/04/PKG3O411FQ1.DTL

On January 4, 2004 The San Francisco Chronicle reported, "From the first Chinatown temples through the Beat era and into the 21st century, Buddhism has been contributing to the cultural palette of the Bay Area and California. So when Jacquelynn Baas, former director of the Berkeley Art Museum, heard about nascent efforts among New York curators to examine Buddhism's influences in Western art, she suggested that something like this ought to be done on the West Coast as well. 'Buddhism has been an important presence in American cultural life for generations,' Baas said, 'and historically, demographically, this is where a lot of it really happened.'" The article outlines a number of upcoming Bay Area exhibitions focusing on Buddhist art.