Hofstra Museum
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Four Artists, Four Objects, Ten Years
September 10 - December 15, 2000
Hofstra Museum's Emily Lowe Gallery presents a special exhibition, Four Artists, Four Objects, Ten Years, featuring the artwork of four contemporary American female artists and their still-life paintings through December 15, 2000. This exhibition shows the work of Janet Fish, Sondra Freckelton, Nancy Hagin and Harriet Shorr, four talented still-life painters who are friends as well as colleagues. The paintings use a brilliant array of colors and textures and are done in watercolor, oil and acrylic. (left: Janet Fish, February - Tenth Anniversary Project, 1996, oil on canvas, 50 x 70 inches; right: Nancy Hagin, Grocery Greens, 1988, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 inches)
In 1986 the four painters each created a painting based upon four objects. Each artist chose an item to be included in the composition. The four common objects, which are enlivened through each painting, are iridescent candlesticks (Fish), a fish vase (Freckelton), a ceramic pitcher (Hagin) and a blue oval platter (Shorr). The artists worked independently without revealing their paintings before they were complete. Ten years later, these artists reinvented painting still-life objects using new objects. These later paintings include a glass vase (Fish), a valentine box of chocolates (Freckelton), a large coffeepot (Hagin) and the hors d'oeuvres set (Shorr). (left: Sondra Freckelton, Ball and Pitcher, 1989, watercolor, 54 x 45 inches)
Judith Swirsky, curator of the exhibition, says "This exhibition shows not only the artistic development of four prominent still-life painters, but also demonstrates the stylistic variety and scope of the genre. For these long-time friends the sense of play in the artistic game which they devised ten years ago and now repeat is as exciting as the unique associations and forms suggested to them by the same objects. Here we 'discover' the results along with them." (right: Harriet Shorr, Summer Reds, 1993, oil on canvas, 50 x 56 inches)
See our earlier article on this traveling exhibition: Four Artists, Four Objects, Ten Years: Janet Fish, Sondra Freckelton, Nancy Hagin, Harriet Shorr (6/27/00)
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