Hackett-Freedman presents a selection of both abstract and figurative works, dating from the 1950s and 60s, by artists associated with the San Francisco Bay Area. Featured artists include Joan Brown, Richard Diebenkorn, Charles Ginnever, Frank Lobdell, Manuel Neri, Nathan Oliveira, Roland Petersen, Hassel Smith, Wayne Thiebaud, James Weeks, and Paul Wonner, among others.

Along with Theophilus Brown and Nathan Oliveira, Paul Wonner was part of the "bridge generation" of Bay Area figurative artists who sought a more direct, intuitive and expressive approach to painting from observation. Noted art historian Caroline Jones praises this period of Wonner's works: "The narrative richness, psychological nuances, and sheer ambiguity of his figurative works were unmatched by any of the first generation of Bay Area Figurative artists, with the possible exception of [Elmer] Bischoff.

A contemporary of Paul Wonner and Nathan Oliveira, Theophilius Brown's work is informed by Abstract Expressonism but remains rooted in the Bay Area Figurative tradition. The painting at the left dates from 1958, when Brown was teaching at the University of California, Davis, a period from which few of Brown's paintings have survived.

An admirer of José Clemente Orozco, James Weeks fused the artistic traditions of Mexican-style social realism with the figurative practices that emerged in the fifites.This unique blend resulted in aseries of works that exhibit a social awareness in addition to being explorations of light, space, color, and figure.

In 1955, Richard Diebenkorn was painting still lifes, landscapes, and figures despite public pressure to keep painting abstractly. Diebenkorn had already achieved national recognition for his abstract work by that time and it was somewhat risky for him to head in a new direction.

The 1950s is the period in which David Park completed his most mature and important work. It was at the beginning of this decade that Park abandoned abstract expressionism in favor of figuration.

David Park died in 1960 at the age of 49. Due to the pain caused by his illness—he had bone cancer—Park was unable to handle the rigors of oil painting and began producing numerous works on paper instead. His drawings from this year are some of his most poignant and moving works.

A contemporary and friend of fellow San Francisco painter Frank Lobdell, Jack Jefferson experimented with total abstraction at the same time as his peers in New York City.

Upon returning from a trip to Europe the previous year, Nathan Oliveira produced some of his most important work in 1959. He once stated that the works he produced in his studio in San Leandro that year "became the very foundation of [his] whole identity as a painter in this country."