About

John Seed
John Seed, 2022: Photo Credit - Chloe Seed


I am a retired art professor living on California's Central Coast. My life in art began with studies at Stanford University and U.C. Berkeley and was shaped by interactions with notable artists including Nathan Oliveira, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Richard Diebenkorn. I was an intern to the collection of Hunk and Moo Anderson, one of the first employees of art dealer Larry Gagosian and  a founding staff member of MOCA, Los Angeles. My book My Art World: Recollections and Other Writings describes many of these formative experiences and encounters.

For over three decades I taught Studio Art and Art History at Mount San Jacinto College. I have also taught Modernism at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and Theory and Criticism for the MFA program at Laguna College of Art and Design. Since 2013 I have served on the board of the Sam Francis Foundation and also serve on the board of Cambria Center for the Arts.

My writing has appeared in Art Ltd., The HuffingtonPost, Hyperallergic, Arts of Asia, and other fine publications. My book Disrupted Realism: Paintings for a Distracted World features the works of 38 contemporary artists who add subjectivity and disruption to their imagery. A sequel, More Disruption: Representational Art in Flux was released in October of 2023. 

Some of my interests include San Francisco Bay Area Art, Disrupted Realism and Chinese Modernism. 

I offer writing services for artists, art dealers and museums. My past and current clients include: Almine Rech (Shanghai), Hackett Mill (San Francisco), Hollis Taggart (New York), Jonathan Novak Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Miles McEnery (New York), Opera Gallery (Paris), Sotheby's Asia (Hong Kong), Sullivan Goss (Santa Barbara) and Van Doren Waxter (New York). 

Please drop me a line and let me know how I can assist you.