Danish-born artist Roland Petersen (b. 1926) is a painter, printmaker and educator whose vibrant explorations of figures, landscape and light have made him an important contributor to Northern California art. Petersen earned his B.A.degree in 1949 and M.A. degree in 1950 from UC Berkeley. He joined the UC Davis faculty in 1956. As an early member of the Bay Area Figurative Movement, he creates vivid, geometric landscapes, often reflecting the fields and topography surrounding Davis. In 1959 he began the ongoing Picnic Series, inspired by UC Davis’ annual Picnic Day, the largest student-organized campus event in the nation. Using exaggerated perspective and thickly applied paint, he places viewers into bright, festive scenes and connects them to campus traditions. Petersen encouraged generations of students through his experimental approach to painting and printmaking. A Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow, Petersen has exhibited widely. His work is held by museums including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.