LEXINGTON, KY.- This survey of paintings, drawings, and sculpture by Edward Melcarth is a homecoming of sorts, a chance to assess and appreciate the Louisville-born artist (1914-1973) who left Kentucky to pursue his personal interests and career.

Points of View looks at Melcarth’s subject matter and his exploration of masculinity, religion, portraiture, drug use, and the American scene. In both small and large works, the artist offers dramatic compositions, positioning bodies as interlocking elements or seen from unique perspectives. Images of men dominate the exhibition, and Melcarth revels in depicting young bodies performing tasks of physical labor and leisure, or animating scenes of group aggression. He takes obvious pleasure in transforming religious and mythological narratives for his own purposes. Additional works on view offer tender portraits and energetic scenes of American life.

Director Stuart Horodner says about the exhibition, “We have to thank Dr. Jonathan Coleman of the Faulkner-Morgan Pagan Babies Archive for bringing Melcarth’s art to our attention. Once we saw images of his work, we knew we had to quickly curate an exhibition that would reveal him as a uniquely modern artist using Old Master techniques in radical ways. His exploration of queer identity, desire, addiction, and violence are so relevant to the context of Kentucky and America today.”

Melcarth studied at Harvard University and Stanley Hayter’s Atelier 17 in Paris, a notable print studio where European modernists gathered and produced limited editions. His friends and patrons included the Guggenheims—he designed Peggy’s famous bat wing sunglasses—Gore Vidal, and Tennessee Williams. He taught at Parsons School of Design, Columbia University, the University of Washington, the University of Louisville, and the Art Students League. His works are in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Kinsey Institute; and the Forbes Collection.