Roy De Forest

Roy De Forest is born in North Platte, Nebraska.

Roy De Forest attends the California School of Fine Arts (now San Francisco Art Institute).

Roy De Forest earns his BA from San Francisco State College.

Roy De Forest exhibits in two group shows at the Ferus Gallery with Billy Al Bengston.

Roy De Forest earns his MA from San Francisco State College.

William T. Wiley begins teaching at the University of California, Davis, alongside Roy De Forest.

Stephen Kaltenbach attends the University of California, Davis, where William T. Wiley and Roy De Forest are teaching.

Roy De Forest teaches alongside William T. Wiley at the University of California, Davis.

Bruce Conner, Roy De Forest, and William T. Wiley are included in Peter Selz’s Funk exhibition at University Art Museum, Berkeley.

William T. Wiley participates in Funk, an exhibition curated by Peter Selz at the University Art Museum, Berkeley. It includes Wiley’s Slant Step Becomes Rhino/Rhino Becomes Slant Step in addition to works by Bruce Conner and Roy De Forest.

Roy De Forest congregates at the Rainbow House at 908 Steiner Street in San Francisco. The house was a place where Davis–Sacramento artists like Bruce Conner and De Forest could mingle with their peers.

Roy De Forest is included in group exhibitions at the Candy Store Gallery.

Adeliza McHugh’s Candy Store Gallery (1962–92) in Folsom, California, becomes an important place for Gladys Nilsson and Jim Nutt to show and mingle with Funk artists like Roy De Forest.

Infuriated with being defined as Funk artists, Roy De Forest and others coin the term “Nut Art,” which primarily refers to artists teaching at UC Davis.

Roy De Forest has a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Karl Wirsum meets Roy De Forest in California and feels an “affinity” for his work.

Roy De Forest has a solo exhibition at the Candy Store Gallery.

Robert Cumming and Roy De Forest participate in the Nut Art exhibition at the University Art Gallery of California State University, Hayward.

Roy De Forest designs the cover for the Nut Art exhibition catalogue. As part of his catalogue contribution, De Forest defines Nut Art: “The work of a peculiar and eccentric nut can truly be called ‘nut art’ … the nut artificer travels in a phantasmagoric micro-world, small and extremely compact, as is the light of a dwarf star imploding inward and in passage collapsing paradise and hell to one as it vanishes forever with our joys, sorrows and unrequited love.”

Roy De Forest produces prints at Tamarind Institute.

Roy De Forest has solo exhibitions at UC Davis's Nelson Gallery in 1980 and 1983.

The Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, celebrates 50 years with two exhibitions that feature works by artists including Garo Antreasian, Vija Celmins, Roy De Forest, Ed Ruscha, and June Wayne.

Roy De Forest has a solo exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California titled Of Dogs and Other People: The Art of Roy De Forest.

Roy De Forest, Gladys Nilsson, and Jim Nutt are included in the group exhibition The Candy Store at Parker Gallery in Los Angeles.