La Jolla Historical Society’s new exhibit at Wisteria Cottage opens Friday

LA JOLLA – La Jolla Historical Society’s next exhibition at Wisteria Cottage explores something unique: the creative partnership between husband-and-wife painters who worked at UC San Diego.

The exhibition, which is titled “Double Bill: The Art of Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson,” presents paintings, sketches, photographs, and archival materials offering insight into Farber’s and Patterson’s individual practices and shared creative world.

With a public opening on Friday, Nov. 7, from 6-7:30 p.m. at Wisteria Cottage Museum at 780 Prospect St. in La Jolla, the new exhibit will run until Feb. 1, 2026.

Double Bill will center on Patterson and Farber’s time in San Diego, following their relocation from New York in 1970. Works on view will illustrate both the importance of their carefully curated domestic setting to each of their practices and their artistic influence on one another.

Furniture and objects from Patterson and Farber’s residence, as well as fruits and flowers inspired by their garden, will be incorporated among original works by both artists in the exhibit.

Featured photography from UC San Diego Visual Arts colleague Rebecca Cohen, a longtime friend of Patterson and Farber, offers glimpses of the pair at home and in their UCSD studio spaces.

This exhibition is made possible through a collaboration with Quint Gallery. Concurrently, Quint Gallery will present Manny Farber: An Up Beat Title at their nearby gallery at 7655 Girard Ave. Together, the two exhibitions highlight distinct, yet connected aspects of Farber’s and Patterson’s careers.

The 1904 Wisteria Cottage has been restored and rehabilitated with expanded, museum-standard gallery space for changing exhibitions and educational programs.

LJHS uses a 1909 cottage as offices and public research space, along with a 1916 carriage house retrofitted for state-of-the-art storage of the society’s archival collection of historic photographs, public records, private documents, and newspaper archives.