Roy De Forest

I read the news last night that Roy DeForest, artist and professor emeritus at UC Davis, had died at age 77. He was one of the young Turks brought to the Davis campus by Chancellor Jim Meyer. DeForest, along with Robert Arneson, Manuel Neri, Wayne Thiebaud, William Wiley, and Roland Peterson put the Davis art department on the map and made it one of the hottest undergraduate and graduate tickets for budding artists. Several years ago I attended a silent auction hosted by the Pence Gallery in Davis. One of DeForest's paintings was up for bid. It was soon clear that two of us were vying for this piece; every time I submitted a bit another hopeful was right there to submit a higher offer. I finally bowed out when the bid amount had too many zeros. Now I wish I had hung in.