{"id":2451635,"date":"2026-06-09T16:27:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T16:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2451635"},"modified":"2026-06-09T16:27:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T16:27:15","slug":"steve-martin-ann-philbin-to-co-curate-a-martin-mull-exhibit-at-sbma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/steve-martin-ann-philbin-to-co-curate-a-martin-mull-exhibit-at-sbma\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Martin, Ann Philbin to co-curate a Martin Mull exhibit at SBMA"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Martin Mull was best known to audiences for playing comedic characters like Col. Mustard in \u201cClue\u201d and Gene Parmesan in \u201cArrested Development,\u201d but a new exhibit opening next year at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art seeks to elevate the role Mull was most proud to inhabit: a respected painter.<\/p>\n

\u201cMartin Mull: The Joys of Indoor\/Outdoor Living,\u201d co-curated by comedian Steve Martin and Hammer Museum Director Emerita Ann Philbin<\/u><\/a>, comes to SBMA next June and runs through October. It will be the first major museum exhibition of Mull\u2019s artwork in 20 years.<\/p>\n

The paintings featured include scenes of unassuming houses visited by otherworldly guests, dead-eyed office workers, gravity-defying displays and lambs being led to the slaughter. They play with perspective, color, space and time to illuminate postwar American tensions, be they racial, political or existential.<\/p>\n

\u201cMartin Mull\u2019s work as an artist will certainly be his primary legacy,\u201d Martin said in a statement. \u201cAfter a full-time career in painting, in the last 20 years of his life with his technical gifts fully developed, Martin\u2019s art coalesced into tight, narrative paintings of a peculiar nature. Combining surreal elements with family idioms, he formed his own worried portrayal of American life.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Martin Mull\u2019s \u201cBand on the Run,\u201d 2014. Oil on panel. <\/p>\n

(Estate of Martin Mull)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

The exhibit, which will take over the museum\u2019s 6,000 square feet of main galleries, will feature more than 50 paintings and drawings by Mull, most of which come from the artist\u2019s estate and the private collections of Mull\u2019s entertainment industry colleagues, including Steve Martin, Jennifer Tilly, and Ted and Nicole Sarandos .<\/p>\n

The exhibit is the second curatorial collaboration between Martin and Philbin since 2015, when they partnered on <\/u> \u201cThe Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris\u201d<\/u><\/a> at the Hammer Museum.<\/p>\n

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\"Steve <\/picture>\n
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Steve Martin and Ann Philbin \u2014 at the Hammer Museum gala in 2005 \u2014 have been friends and collaborators for years. <\/p>\n

(John Shearer \/ WireImage )<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Philbin, who retired from her longtime role as the Hammer\u2019s director in 2024<\/a>, told The Times via email that the idea behind the Mull show came after she saw one of his paintings in Martin\u2019s dining room.<\/p>\n

\u201cSteve talked about how Mull\u2019s painting practice was his deepest passion, despite the fact that his fame was as an actor and comedian. It prompted me to do a little research, and I became very intrigued by his body of work. I wrote to Steve, \u2018Martin Mull. There\u2019s something there.\u2019 That\u2019s how the project began,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Along with Martin and Philbin, the upcoming exhibition is led by SBMA Chief Curator James Glisson and Amada Cruz, the museum\u2019s director and CEO. In a news release, a museum spokesperson said Mull\u2019s work \u201cupsets any storybook picture of perfection\u201d and resists nostalgia while acknowledging its allure.<\/p>\n

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\"Martin <\/picture>\n
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Martin Mull\u2019s \u201cEnvy,\u201d 2008, from the series \u201cSeven Deadly Sins.\u201d Oil on linen. <\/p>\n

(Estate of Martin Mull)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so deeply strange \u2014 dark and funny, hopeful and menacing all at once,\u201d Philbin said. \u201cThe paintings are about the smoldering tensions that underlie the American dream, so I think it\u2019s a particularly apt moment to bring them back into the public eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mull, who died in 2024,<\/u><\/a> received his master of fine arts degree in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1967. Though he went on to craft a career in the public eye as a musician, comedian and actor, painting remained his \u201ctrue vocation.\u201d<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n

Martin, a longtime friend of the multidisciplinary artist, echoed this sentiment in an email to The Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a comedian says he is also a painter, run. Except this once.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Martin Mull was best known to audiences for playing comedic characters like Col. Mustard in \u201cClue\u201d and Gene Parmesan in \u201cArrested Development,\u201d but a new exhibit opening next year at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art seeks to elevate the role Mull was most proud to inhabit: a respected painter. \u201cMartin Mull: The Joys of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2451636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2451635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Steve-Martin-Ann-Philbin-to-co-curate-a-Martin-Mull-exhibit.com2F552F5e2F24d570f3422eab458a96d7bc.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2451635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2451637,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451635\/revisions\/2451637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2451636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2451635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2451635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2451635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}