Robert Arneson Park is a 5 acre park located in northeast Davis corner of Wright Boulevard and Moore Boulevard.

Who was Robert Arneson?

The park is named in honor of Robert Arneson, a UC Davis faculty member for four decades, who was at the forefront of a movement that took ceramic art in a new direction.

When Arneson came to the UC Davis campus in 1962, ceramic art forms were mainly "art" versions of traditional pottery shapes - pots, vases, plates and tiles. But starting in the 1960s, Arneson and several other California artists abandoned the manufacture of functional wares in favor of using everyday objects to make confrontational - and to some, offensive statements. The new movement was dubbed "Funk Art" and Arneson is considered the "father of the ceramic Funk movement."

Arneson, who died in 1992 after a long battle with cancer, used toilets, typewriters, soda bottles and other common objects in his work, which included both ceramic sculptures and drawings. Autobiography also played an important role in Arneson's art.  He appeared in many of his own pieces - as a chef, a man picking his nose, and a jean-jacketed hipster in sunglasses.

Information for this page was excerpted in part from an article written by Mike Sintetos, UC Davis University Communications.