PORTLAND, ME.- Joel Babb, who is known for his lush, large format nature paintings, as well as his series of complex and monumental cityscapes, is set to debut twelve new Nature works at Greenhut Galleries on Thursday, September 1st. Announcement was made by Kelley Lehr, the gallery’s Co-director and Co-proprietor, with John Danos. Forest Murmurs - The Maine Woods, which runs through October 1st, will open with a reception for Babb, from 5-7:00pm.

Forest Murmurs will mark Babb’s third solo exhibition with Greenhut Galleries, which is among the oldest and most respected art galleries in Portland. Babb’s inspiration for his Nature paintings has historically been the Hudson River School artists, including Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, and Albert Bierstadt, among others. For his cityscapes, Babb draws inspiration from the panoramic 18th century “view” paintings of the Venetian master Canaletto.

After graduating with a degree in Art History from Princeton University in 1969, where he studied with George Segal and George Ortman, Babb spent a year in Munich and Rome, before going on to Boston, where he earned an MFA from the Museum School and Tufts. During his years in Boston, Babb embarked on an ambitious painting series of aerial views based upon photos that he took from a helicopter over Boston. One of these paintings, Copley Plunge, is in the permanent collection of the Boston MFA. Gulf Hagas, a work from Babb’s Nature series, was recently acquired and installed by the Portland Museum of Art, in a gallery alongside the work of Estes, Porter, Downs, Katz, and Welliver.

“Joel Babb’s paintings are noteworthy not only for their virtuosity and meticulous capture of the physical realities of the subject matter depicted,” said Kelley Lehr, “but also for their painterly qualities and his ability to capture the sensory, emotional, and quasi-spiritual realities of a direct encounter with beauty. Be it natural or man-made.”