VOICES
STEVE OLIVER has made an art of solving
problems. As the president of the award-win-
ning Bay Area construction firm Oliver &
Company, he’s spent countless hours figuring
out how to build buildings, work with archi-
tects and finish projects on time and on budget.
But when he encountered a work by the instal-
lation artist Edward Kienholz while visiting
SFMOMA with his wife, Nancy, in the early
1970s, he was vexed. “It pissed me off,” says
Oliver. “I thought, ‘This guy’s trying to tell me
something and I’m not getting it.’”
Oliver was so disturbed he left his office the
following day and returned to the museum to
puzzle it out. Surveying the piece again, he expe-
rienced “this great line you cross,” an intellectual
engagement like nothing he’d known before. It
ignited a passion for the arts that has consumed
him and has had a profound impact on the Bay
Area — and national — art scenes to this day.
After that initial Kienholz encounter, Oliver became a contemporary art collector and,
eventually, philanthropist. He has served on
the board of SFMOMA, including as its chair,
and helped oversee the museum’s move to its
current South of Market location. He’s been on
the board of the California College of the Arts
(CCA) since 1981, helping to turn the college
around after it nearly went broke. He helped
found the Community Arts Stabilization Trust
(CAST), which purchases and leases spaces for
Bay Area nonprofit arts organizations. And he
currently serves as chairman of United States
Artists, an organization that annually awards 50
fellowships worth $50,000 each to the country’s
most innovative artists, including filmmakers
like Barry Jenkins, who directed the 2017 Academy Award winner Moonlight.
Even Oliver’s so-called “down” time is dominated by art. For the last 30 years, he and Nancy
have invited prominent artists, including Richard Serra and Bruce Nauman, to their 100-acre
Geyserville ranch to create art. In the process,
the ranch — which was spared in October’s
fires — has been home to one of the most
ambitious private collections of site-specific art
in the nation.
“My father always said,
‘If you do good, you
have to do good with it.’ ”