108 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {home & design} PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF: STUDIO SHOP GALLERY - ROLAND PETERSEN Coast in order to study with noted artists like Hans Hofman. In the early 1950s, he taught art history at Washington State University before being hired as one of the first instructors in the newly-formed art department at UC Davis. This would prove to be a significant event in his career, both because he remained on the faculty until his retirement in 1992 and also because the Davis campus provided him with inspiring subject matter for over seven decades. As a founding father of the nowrenowned art department at Davis, Roland hired Wayne Thiebaud and worked alongside key players in the California Funk Movement like Manuel Neri, Robert Arneson and Roy De Forest. These artists rebelled against the serious, angstridden nature of Abstract Expressionism and wanted to return to the figure, while also exploring basics like color, form, line and composition in their own quirky, irreverent ways. Picnic Day was a perfect vehicle for Roland to express his love of color and the arrangement of forms to illustrate depth and build pictorial space. He would sketch on site, then return to the studio to paint large-scale paintings that combined landscape and still life. In many of these works, there are picnic tables, umbrellas, American flags, a dog and at least one figure. In most paintings, there are multiple figures—but each is rendered as though alone. This is one of the signature features ABOVE: (clockwise, from top left) Ready to Dive; Farm Picnic; The Terrace with Flag.
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