The Grandparent Portrait Show, a biennial event, has become the signature exhibition for the Student Art Fund. Student artists in public junior high and high schools from Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, and Goleta, pay tribute to their grandparents and significant elders by creating drawings, paintings, sculptures and photographs that capture their portrait. The show was created in 2009 by members of the SBAA Student Art Fund Committee. Grandparent portraits were a regular part of committee member Audie Love’s class curriculum at Dos Pueblos High School. When he heard that a student’s portrait had been prominently displayed at a memorial service, he was inspired to create a venue for the entire community to experience the significance of these portraits.
The 2023 Grandparent Portrait Show will be on display at the Faulkner Gallery at the Santa Barbara Public Library at 40 E. Anapamu Street, from April 5th through April 27th.
The Grandparent Portrait Project is one that connects students with their family roots and pride. Getting students to focus on the faces of their grandparents is a way of strengthening those connections, and possibly, of inspiring the students with the hopes and aspirations that these grandparent figures have for them.
This Eighth Biennial Grandparent Portrait Show contains 157 portraits, in various media, of grandparents or beloved elders. All entries are displayed in our online portrait gallery. The exhibit was juried by Nicole Strasburg, who viewed images of all the entries and selected thirteen award-winning portraits and five honorable mentions. Those eighteen images are featured in our award winners gallery.
“Relationships between grandparents and their grandchildren are unique, significant and often fleeting. The Grandparent Portrait show…aims to strengthen and preserve those bonds….At the show’s opening reception, there’s a palpable layer of energy inside the Faulkner Gallery. The room is packed. Students, teachers, family and friends have gathered for their first look at some very special one-of-a-kind pieces of art. Smiles and hugs abound — along with a few tears.”
—The California Report, National Public Radio Broadcast
