The Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD, is excited to host an exhibition of paintings and monotypes by New York-based artist Lisa Breslow. Lisa Breslow: Landscape/Cityscape will be on display April 22 – May 29, 2011 with a Members’ Reception on Friday, April 29, from 6 to 8 p.m. and an Exhibition Walk-Through with Lisa Breslow at 6:30 p.m. Breslow’s exhibition can be divided into two distinct modes of expression: a moody Tonalism of muted colors and related hues in many of the landscapes and a brighter but more complex realism in the recent cityscapes.
Although Breslow’s art may have qualities of Plein Air painting, including an interest in landscape and the ability to capture the effects of light, she creates her paintings in the studio working off sketches and photographs she has made in the field. The urban scenes chronicle her experience in the city. The environment and the places are recognizable, but they have a strong personal inflection.
Breslow also brings a knowledge and appreciation of her artistic predecessors. Because of her mastery of light, color, and abstraction, critics have observed an affinity with painters like George Inness, Fairfield Porter and Edouard Manet. The relationship to Manet is especially evident in her simple but beautiful small still-lifes. Both Breslow and Manet employ quick brushstrokes with the evident movement of paint. Although Breslow has exhibited extensively in the United States, this is her first solo museum show. She enjoys a growing reputation and an expanding career marked by ever more prestigious commissions.
A second exhibition, Sylvia Gottwald:Cultured Designs, will also be on display at the Museum April 22 through May 22, 2011, with a Members’ Reception on Friday, April 29, from 6 to 8 p.m. A trunk show and sale will be held at the Museum on May 20 from 2:30 – 6 p.m. Gottwald is a Harvard-trained architect who spent more than 10 years as the director of design forWashington’s Ronald Reagan International Trade Center. More than a decade ago, during her extensive travels, Gottwald began to collect rare shells from France, Thailand, Japan, the Phillipines and other locations. As a result, she switched careers, turning her attention to creating wearable art and helping to transform the traditional craft of mother-of-pearl into a contemporary form.
Juxtaposing mother-of-pearl with materials familiar from her days as an architect, Gottwald incorporates rubber, steel and other metals into the totality of her wearable designs. Because Gottwald is sensitive to ecology and the sustainability of marine life, she incorporates only those shells and pearls that can be gathered from sustainable farms, including the non-endangered abalone, paua and Turbo Marmoratus shells from the Far East. Cultured Designs showcases a cross section of materials and forms created over the last 10 years of Gottwald’s career as a jewelry designer. While many viewers will admire the beauty and elegance of her work, it is also hoped that her work will draw additional attention to the plight of the sensitive ecology of the Eastern Shore, Chesapeake Bay and overall world.
From April 29 through June 12, 2011, the Academy Art Museum’s Atrium and Calvert Galleries will feature Jacob Lawrence:Toussaint L’Ouverture Series of Prints, generously lent from DC Moore Gallery in New York. This exhibition of 15 prints, are based on 41 paintings from a series also entitled Toussaint L’Ouverture, which was completed in 1938 and currently in theAmistad Research Center in New Orleans. From 1986–1997, Lawrence reworked and distilled the series while translating them to silkscreen, disseminating the remarkable story of Haitian leader Toussaint L’Ouverture in a succinct, but dramatic fashion. L’Ouverture became a leader in the Haitian revolution to bring about its independence from its European overseers. In 1804Haiti became the first black Western republic.
For further information about the Academy Art Museum’s exhibitions, visit www.academyartmuseum.org or call 410-822-2787.