LINCOLN, MASSACHUSETTS.- The DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park will present "Painting in Boston: 1950-2000," on view from September 14, 2002 - February 23, 2003. The exhibition identifies and analyzes the work of the 67 most important painters of the period. The exhibition presents the significant thematic and stylistic developments within the medium as practiced in the Boston area, and delineates the art historical relations among local, national, and international schools of painting. This project is also the first scholarly investigation of the totality of the painting community and its necessary support structures in the city of Boston: the artists, galleries, museums, educational institutions, critics, collectors, and patrons. It tells the story of how these interlocked persons and organizations functioned to collectively establish the character and scope of painting.



Drawn from DeCordova’s Permanent Collection, other museums, and private collections, 75 paintings by 67 artists will be mounted in the Museum’s main public galleries, which total over 10,000 square feet of exhibition space. The exhibition is structured thematically around the four major stylistic tendencies that have dominated painting in the Boston area over the last five decades:



Realism, with its rich local legacy stretching from early Colonial portraiture on through nineteenth-century Precisionism and American Impressionism (Allan Rohan Crite, Linda Etcoff, Emily Eveleth, Gregory Gillespie, Michael Mazur, John Moore, Walter Murch, George Nick, Scott Prior, Barnet Rubenstein, Donald Shambroom, Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz, Sarah Supplee, James Weeks);



Expressionism/Neo-Expressionism, which reveals Boston’s institutional and individual ties to the heritage of early twentieth-century German Expressionist painting (Doug Anderson, David Aronson, Gerry Bergstein, Hyman Bloom, Bernard Chaet, Dana C. Chandler (Akin Duro), Robert Ferrandini, Aaron Fink, Alex Grey, Philip Guston, Timothy Harney, Jon Imber, Todd McKie, Flora Natapoff, Arthur Polonsky, Henry Schwartz, Mitchell Siporin, Barbara Swan, Lois Tarlow, John Walker, Candace Walters, Maxine Yalovitz-Blankenship, Karl Zerbe);



Abstraction, demonstrating a direct link to the dominance of international Modernism and especially Abstract Expressionism at the mid-century (Albert Alcalay, Natalie Alper, Gregory Amenoff, Domingo Barreres, Jack Clift, Friedel Dzubas, Kofi Kayiga, Gyorgy Kepes, Roger Kizik, Lawrence Kupferman, John McNamara, Rob Moore, Maud Morgan, David Ortins, Katherine Porter, Paul Shakespear, Bill Thompson, Irene Valincius);



The New Painting, which describes a vital group of artists with Postmodern interests in culture, gender, identity, and politics (Ahmed Abdalla, Laylah Ali, Ambreen Butt, Frank Egloff, Ellen Gallagher, Anne Harris, Colleen Kiely, Annette Lemieux, Catherine McCarthy, Tabitha Vevers, Lucy White, Richard Yarde).



Painting in Boston is a component of the Millennium Exhibition Project, the first major, comprehensive study of how modern American art developed in the Boston area in the late twentieth century. The Project began with Photography in Boston: 1955-1985 (September 16, 2000 - January 21, 2001). Painting in Boston: 1950-2000 follows from September 14, 2002 - February 23, 2003, and Sculpture in Boston in autumn 2005. Each exhibition is organized as a distinct component, yet each is being formatted and presented to constitute a larger whole as a series to foster a more focused, in-depth understanding of the art produced during this period and the multiple interrelations of media, artists, and institutions.



Painting in Boston: 1950-2000 is organized by Director of Curatorial Affairs Rachel Rosenfield Lafo, Curator Nick Capasso, and Curatorial Fellow Jennifer Uhrhane.