About us

In 2017, University of California, Irvine (UCI) established the Institute and Museum of California Art following the acquisition of two important collections of California Art: The Buck Collection and The Irvine Museum Collection. Four years later, this new university asset was renamed Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art (Langson IMCA) following receipt of a leadership gift for a new facility.

Learn more about the mission, future vision, and strategic ambitions of Langson IMCA.

Langson IMCA considers what constitutes California Art and seeks to share the stories of artists and their artmaking in informed, inclusive, and just ways, ensuring that a diversity of voices and lived experiences are presented. Langson IMCA’s holdings currently include over 4,500 works representing a wide array of genres and mediums that span late 19th and early 20th century works, including California Impressionism and plein air painting, to Post-War and contemporary art. Through its growing collection, research institute, exhibitions, and public programming, Langson IMCA celebrates artists responding to the California experience, fosters research to generate new scholarship, and encourages meaningful encounters and experiences with California Art and its global contexts.

An integral part of a leading research university, Langson IMCA aspires to be a dynamic center for the study, presentation, and appreciation of California Art—the creative output forged by the state’s distinct features, history, peoples, and natural environments. Langson IMCA builds on UCI’s mission to position the arts as a core component of the university experience and a vibrant asset to Irvine and the region.

Langson IMCA works with colleagues across and beyond the university to serve and engage with its many constituents: UCI students, faculty, staff, and alumni; artists, curators, and scholars; peer institutions; local and regional residents; K-12 students and teachers in Orange County; and tourists and visitors, among others. In collaboration with local school districts and community and cultural organizations, Langson IMCA is a primary resource for object-based arts education for the region’s youth, teaching visual literacy, art practice, and history.

Over the next several years, UCI will be working hard to realize the vision of its original architect, William Pereira, who in 1962 situated an art museum at the heart of campus. Until then, Langson IMCA presents rotating exhibitions and programs in an interim location at 18881 Von Karman Avenue in Irvine.

Admission is free and open to the public.

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