Marin Magazine - SPACES January 2018

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.