Contemporary Art Meets Iconic Comic Genius Coup

Longtime friends and frequent collaborators Martin Mull and Steve Martin were often found on the same stand-up comedy bill, and they even shared a musical stage at the Troubadour back in the ‘70s. But those names are coming together next summer in a completely different way, when the Santa Barbara Museum of Art presents the exhibition Martin Mull: The Joys of Indoor/Outdoor Living, set to run next year from June 27 to October 17, 2027.

Curated by Martin and contemporary art heavyweight Ann Philbin, director emerita of the Hammer Museum UCLA, Los Angeles, where she served from 1999 to 2026, the exhibition is quite a coup for SBMA, as it will be the first major museum exhibition of Mull’s artwork in 20 years.

“I can’t tell you how excited we are about it, but also excited to just get the news out,” shared Amada Cruz, SBMA’s Robert and Mercedes Eichholz director and CEO, in an exclusive interview about the project. “It was such a wonderful opportunity that we just jumped on it.”

It was Philbin, who Cruz described as “a legend in the art world, a real curatorial force,” who first brought the project to SBMA’s attention. “She put the Hammer Museum on the map as one of the premier contemporary art museums in the world, with very deep, deep connections. So, she’s someone I have enormous respect for, and she actually contacted me and said, ‘you know, I’ve got this idea for a show, and maybe we could do it at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.’ So, of course, I take anything that Annie would propose to the museum very seriously.”

Cruz continued, “And then, when she said it was Martin Mull, and I actually knew the work, and I knew that it was kind of under-recognized, and I thought, this is kind of an intriguing and surprising proposition. And then she said the co-curator would be Steve Martin,” laughed Cruz. “It’s a little hard to turn down that curatorial dream team. Steve Martin himself, besides being a comic genius and a writer and a musician, and all of that, as we know him for in his entertainment life, he also is an extremely informed and serious art collector.” 

Art was also an important force in the life of Mull, who died in 2024. He was well known as an actor (Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman; Arrested Development; Mrs. Doubtfire), comedian, and musician, and studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1967, and throughout his long entertainment career never stopped making and exhibiting his art. 

In addition, this exhibition reunites Martin and Philbin in a curatorial endeavor, as Martin co-curated the critically acclaimed show The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2015.

With the success of the past collaboration, Cruz said, “I knew that the two of them could put together a really fantastic exhibition. And then, of course, they are being supported by our own fantastic chief curator, James Glisson. So, the artwork was fantastic, but under-recognized. It’s wonderful to be able to do a show that either reintroduces, or for those who know some of Martin Mull’s work, gives people a deeper understanding of this under-recognized, or perhaps even completely unknown work as an artist.”

Cruz continued, “I think the museum is a place of surprise, is something that we really try to focus on, and so it was just sort of the perfect package, and then it came together fairly quickly, because there was so much enthusiasm for this project.”

While the specific programming is not yet in place for this just announced exhibition, Martin, who has a house in Santa Barbara, will make some sort of appearance in conjunction with the show, and is also going to be writing some of the text for the exhibition catalogue, along with Dave Hickey, James Glisson, and other contributors to be confirmed.

Martin Mull: The Joys of Indoor/Outdoor Living will feature Mull’s cool, surreal, and often dark takes on postwar American life. Mull combined scenes drawn from his childhood in the Midwest and sourced from old photographs to create physically impossible situations, frequently set in the suburbs of 1950s and 1960s. These paintings skillfully illustrate an underbelly of tension and darkness behind the prosperity of postwar “white culture” in America.

Presented in the 6,000 sq. ft. main galleries of the museum, the exhibition will include more than 50 paintings and drawings, the majority of which are on loan from the artist’s estate and the collections of Mull’s friends and colleagues in the entertainment industry, including Jennifer Tilly, Ted and Nicole Sarandos, and Steve Martin himself, among others. Mull’s artworks are held in the collections of museums across the U.S., including LACMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Walker Art Center, and the UC Irvine Orange County Museum of Art.

“Martin Mull’s work as an artist will certainly be his primary legacy,” said Steve Martin in a statement about the exhibit. “After a full-time career in painting, in the last 20 years of his life with his technical gifts fully developed, Martin’s art coalesced into tight, narrative paintings of a peculiar nature. Combining surreal elements with family idioms, he formed his own worried portrayal of American life.”

“The exhibition will be the centerpiece of the Museum’s summer program in 2027 and continues the SBMA legacy as a place of discovery and the unexpected,” said Cruz.