Madeline Madrid, an art history M.A. student, was thrilled to see her favorite "frog" on view, as she had advocated. It is the work of the late artist David Gilhooly, who received his bachelor's and master's degrees at UC Davis in the 1960s, working as an assistant to UC Davis artist and Professor Robert Arneson. Gilhooly was famous for, among other things, multiple depictions of frogs, mostly in ceramic. 

In full view to museumgoers are displays normally reserved for behind the scenes: boxes of still uncrated artworks. These are located in a gallery that continually changes as works rotate to the next step. The Fine Arts Collection contains more than 5,000 works ranging from ancient art to contemporary art donated or purchased in the past year, including the works of UC Davis M.F.A. students.

The exhibit is made possible by Carol and Gerry Parker through the Parker Family Digitization Fund.

Students view Polaroid shots by Andy Warhol in one of many drawers stowing the collection's works on paper awaiting digitization. These keep company with UC Davis and non-UC Davis-related works by such artists as Ansel Adams, Robert Arneson, Joan Brown, Deborah Butterfield, Roy De Forest, Richard Diebenkorn, Kota Ezawa, Mike Henderson, Stephen Kaltenbach, Agnes Martin, Bruce Nauman, Roland Petersen, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Wayne Thiebaud and William T. Wiley. All visitors can view them.

Morgan Strong illustrates the concept of "backstory." This refers to the back of a work, documenting the history of places and dates where a work was exhibited or sold. This view is not something museum visitors ordinarily see or know about. Strong is an art studio and design double major who took the art history and design classes that worked on Light into Density, a previous student-museum collaborative exhibition. She worked with the museum on designing this exhibition layout.

Anya Thompson, a '25 M.A. student in art history who is now on the digitization staff to record data on each piece, explains the salon wall. The gallery wall was suggested by students. Located directly across from the digitization area, it displays a variety of artworks from the collection with Wayne Thiebaud's sketch, by her left arm, in the center, and multiple generations of artists' works jutting out in all directions. 

Cadmael Tapia Zapata, a junior majoring in art history, uses a laminated guide to show how museum visitors can identify art and artists on the salon wall. The wall includes a few video works, such as one by Bruce Nauman, M.A. '66, shown in this photo.   

Students even updated Wikipedia entries of several lesser-known artists in the collection. The research was often challenging but rewarding, Sofroniew said. 

Maggie Mariani, a sociocultural anthropology major, and Finley, view the exhibition near the five circles — an organizational detail that was difficult to explain in class, but easily illustrated in the exhibition. Each circle groups artists by their relationship to UC Davis — from first-generation faculty artists, M.F.A. and M.A. students, UC Davis-related artists, 20th- and 21st-century artists, and pre-20th century. Art is then identified by the color of each circle. 

Robert Arneson, known by current students and others for the iconic Eggheads that dot the UC Davis campus and his satirical treatment of subjects, also made other things. Here, M.F.A. student Julio Cesar Rodriguez prepares one of Arneson’s vases on a recent day. 

Viveka Smith, a junior art history major who was in the course and also helps with the project as a member of the museum staff, inspects a recently uncrated work, a step in the digitization process. 

Once the museum staff digitizes the works, all will go from being a campus collection to being globally accessible for free in partnership with the UC Davis Library. The digitization launch happens in conjunction with the museum's 10th anniversary in fall 2026.

The exhibition runs through May 2.