Margaret Penrose "Penny" Dhaemers (1926–2022) was an artist and professor in the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

College of Environmental Design (CED), specializing in fine, visual, and textile arts. She was the first woman to chair the Department of Design (1970–74) and following a reorganization in which it was absorbed into the CED, chaired the CED Visual Studies Committee from 1976 until her retirement in 1994.

Personal life and education

Dhaemers earned her

bachelor of fine arts A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases. Background The Bachelor ...

from the

California College of Arts & Crafts California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996 it opened a second campus in San ...

(CCAC) and graduate degrees in art history from

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...

(1967) and in painting and graphics from CCAC (1959). She was married to fellow artist and jeweler Robert Dhaemers. Works created in the 1950s by both Penny and Robert are held by the

San Francisco Arts Commission The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) is the City agency that champions the arts as essential to daily life by investing in a vibrant arts community, enlivening the urban environment and shaping innovative cultural policy in San Francisco, Cali ...

Career

Dhaemers is known primarily for her photography. During her graduate studies, Dhaemers documented CCAC students working on the first found-object sculpture class on

Bay Farm Island Bay Farm Island is a district of the city of Alameda, California, though it is separated from the rest of the city on Alameda Island by an estuary of San Leandro Bay. Its ZIP code is 94502. The location was originally an island in San Francisco Ba ...

in 1960, which eventually grew into the

Emeryville mudflat sculptures The Emeryville mudflat sculptures were a series of found object structures along the San Francisco Bay shoreline of Emeryville, California, largely constructed from discarded materials found on-site such as driftwood. The mudflat sculptures were ...

exhibited alongside the Eastshore Freeway until the early 1990s. In addition, Dhaemers photographed

netsuke A is a miniature sculpture, originating in 17th century Japan. Initially a simply-carved button fastener on the cords of an box, later developed into ornately sculpted objects of craftsmanship. History Traditionally, Japanese clothing – ...

sculptures for the book ''Netsuke: A Guide for Collectors'', first published in 1965. In 2000, Dhaemers was one of the artists whose works were shown in the ''Videospace'' group exhibition at the

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director from ...

. ''Videospace'' was drawn from the archives of the National Center for Experiments in Television, which was an artists' research center that operated between 1967 and 1975, affiliated with

KQED KQED may refer to: * KQED (TV), a PBS member station in San Francisco * KQED-FM KQED-FM (88.5 MHz) is a NPR-member radio station in San Francisco, California. Its parent organization is KQED Inc., which also owns its television partners, both ...

, the local

public television Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

station. Dhaemers documented the artists and works being developed, using her

Hasselblad Victor Hasselblad AB is a Swedish manufacturer of medium format cameras, photographic equipment and image scanners based in Gothenburg, Sweden. The company originally became known for its classic analog medium-format cameras that used a waist- ...

still camera. She also produced ceramic pieces.

References

External links

* * Depicts Dhaemers, her husband Robert, and the artist

Robert Bechtle Robert Alan Bechtle (May 14, 1932 – September 24, 2020) was an American Painting, painter, printmaker, and educator. He lived nearly all his life in the San Francisco Bay Area and whose art was centered on scenes from everyday local life. His pa ...

at the opening of the CCAC Exhibition Center. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dhaemers, Penny UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design faculty