Renny Pritikin has been the director of New Langton Arts, the chief curator of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and most recently the director of the Nelson Gallery and Fine Arts Collection at UC Davis from 2004 through 2012.
Pritikin gave early support to the careers of such artists as Nancy Rubins, Nayland Blake, Fred Tomaselli, Tim Hawkinson, and many others and is known for working with figures from outside the fine arts in the museum context. This includes Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, the auto customizer; Syd Mead the visual futurist and "Blade Runner" designer; Don Ed Hardy, the tattoo master; and Ricky Jay, the master sleight-of-hand artist, cultural historian, and collector.
Pritikin recently has written catalog essays for painter Cornelia Schulz (Pat Sweetow Gallery); multimedia artist Julia Couzens (Cal State Stanislaus); sculptor Tony May (retrospective at San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art); painter John Bankston (beta pictoris Gallery, Birmingham, and reprinted in Art Paper, Atlanta; visual artists Jim Melchert and Nancy Genn, (Sanchez Art Center, Pacifica, California); sculptor Dean De Cocker (Jay Jay Gallery, Sacramento CA); painter Joe Draegart (Erickson Fine Art, Healdsburg, CA); and an essay in the book Trimpin: Contraptions for Art and Sound (Marquand Books/University of Washington Press, 2011);
Pritikin is a regular contributor to the online critical journal Art Practical, and such other publications as Proximity, a Chicago-based art magazine, and an upcoming 2013 piece in Huck, a London magazine. In 2013 he will curate exhibitions at the Kondos Gallery, City College of Sacramento; di Rosa, Napa CA; PHOTO in Oakland, CA; and Chandra Cerrito Gallery, Oakland, CA.
He has lectured in Japanese museums as a guest of the USIA; toured Israel as a Koret Israel Prize Fellow; was the curator chosen to represent the United States at the Cuenca (Ecuador) Bienal; and lectured in three cities in New Zealand as a Fulbright Fellow. In 2010 he was visiting lecturer at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon.
In addition to teaching at CCA, Pritikin has taught art administration and artist professional skills training at California State University, San Francisco, and Golden Gate University.
Renny's also authored three books of poetry, most recently How We Talk (POD Press, 2007).
Senior Adjunct Professor, Curatorial Practice