St. Helena’s most conspicuously vacant storefront is now occupied, with artist Simon Bull’s Meuse Gallery holding a grand opening last Friday.
Bull said he’d been searching San Francisco and the rest of the North Bay for a space to complement his gallery in Carmel, and the “epic, humongous” space in St. Helena’s Richie Block is a perfect fit.
“We could use a space like this because I have big, colorful art that likes big, colorful space,” said Bull, who lives in Carmel but still bears the accent of his native England. “We want this to be like St. Helena’s museum of modern art.”
The 4,200-square-foot space had been vacant since Goodman’s moved to Calistoga in December 2015.
Bull obtained one of the city’s new pop-up permits because it allowed him to open right away, but he said he plans to apply for a permanent use permit “well before” the pop-up permit expires next August.
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“We didn’t come here for a year. We came here forever,” he said.
The Masons, who own the building, had already made substantial improvements to the space after Goodman’s moved out. All Bull did was add track lighting.
“We wanted to light this space up like a Christmas tree,” he said. “We wanted the center of St. Helena to be bright and full of light and color.”
Bull’s Carmel gallery attracts guests from the South Bay, and he hopes the St. Helena gallery draws people from San Francisco and the North Bay, as well as tourists from farther away.
According to his website, Bull is one of the top-selling artists in the U.S. He was the official artist of the 2002 U.S. Winter Olympics, the 2019 National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C., and boxer Muhammad Ali from 2007 until his death in 2016.