Arts Life
Artistic Expressions
Jewish artists featured in blockbuster shows around Michigan.
Meadow Brook Anniversary
here is an important issue facing the
Meadow Brook Art Gallery as it celebrates
its 40th anniversary. Staff and supporters
are considering efforts to turn the gallery
into a museum.
One element of that decision is the cache of 1,500
fine works already.in place with some on view through
April 11. The exhibit, "40 Years of Collecting: 75
Masterworks from the Oakland University Art
Collection," also will be part of a gala anniversary cele-
bration open to the public Saturday, March 13.
"There is an extraordinary range of works in this
collection — from small gems to major pieces by
important masters," says.Dick Goody, gallery direc-
tor. "This is a very exciting opportunity to see some
surprising and remarkable objects, many of which
have not been exhibited for over a decade."
A number of internationally known Jewish artists
will be represented.
'Alex Katz is among America's greatest living figura-
tive artists, and we will be showing his painting of a
woman standing near an ocean," Goody explains. "His
painting suggests the ethos of the leisure class, and his
style was born of Pop Art. Many of his subjects look as
if they've come out of Glamour magazine."
Also on display will be prints by Richard Lindner,
who was a New York illustrator. His "Shoot Series"
showcases fashion photos with comments about guns.
A George Segal sculpture, Girl on the Chair, also
will be shown. It is highly representative of Segal's
everyday figures made from plaster on wood.
"Members of the Jewish community have really
supported contemporary art and this gallery,"
Goody says. "They are very much represented on
the committee planning our gala."
Honorary gala chairpersons include Lois and Mark
Shaevsky of Bloomfield Hills. The event will include
a strolling supper and entertainment by Oakland
University music students.
"I was active with the gallery many years ago, -
and I'm glad to be involved again," says Lois
Shaevsky. "The. collection is very impressive."
Other artists represented in the exhibit are
Fernando Botero, Al Held, Malcolm Morley, Horst
Antes, Lyonel Feininger, Walter Firle, Terry Winters,
Richard Artschwager and Ed Fraga.
There also will be works from the G. Mennen
Williams Collection of African Art and prints from
the Carl F. Barnes Jr. and Anna M. Barnes Collection,
which features pieces by Albrecht Durer, William
Hogarth and Eugene Delacroix.
Whistler And Followers
Whistler's paintings with those of his
followers so the exhibition would show
how the elements that are so identified
with Whistler were copied by many respected
American artists."
While Whistler's Nocturne captures the atmos-
phere of a fireworks display in London, Gorson's
piece depicts the essence of a- blast furnace, active
and sparking amid an industrial landscape.
Gorson, born in Lithuania, did many such land-
scapes of Pittsburgh.
The show includes 13 paintings by Whistler
and features his best-known project, Whistler's
Mother on loan from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.
The portrait may well have served as inspiration
for many Gorson portraits, from steel workers to
magnates such as Andrew Carnegie.
Among the other artists' whose works are being
shown are John Singer Sargent, William Merritt
Chase, Thomas Wilmer Dewing and Henry
Ossawa Tanner.
Whistler, who never returned to the United
States after leaving to study in Europe when he
was 21, titled his paintings "symphonies," "noc-
turnes" and "arrangements" because he associated
T
A
-
rabbi based in Pittsburgh during the
early part of the 20th century had an
impact on an exhibit scheduled March
14-June 6 at the Detroit Institute of
Arts.
Rabbi J. Leonard Levy of the Reform Rodef
Shalom Congregation was a supporter of the cul-
tural community and helped move artist Aaron
H. Gorson along a career path leading to his rep-
resentation in "American Attitude: Whistler and
His Followers".
The exhibit, which celebrates the paintings of
James McNeill Whistler and artists who went
along with his interest in color and composition,
includes Gorson's painting Pittsburgh at Night
among 63 pieces. Gorson got to know Whistler's
style in Paris during a study program arranged by
Rabbi Levy, according to archives of Pennsylvania
State University.
"I think the Gorson painting is one of the most
exciting in the show," says James W. Tottis, DIA
acting curator of American art. "It is presented in
comparison with Whistler's Nocturne in Black and
Gold: The Falling Rocket. We interspersed
.
iN
3/12
2004
44
MEADOW BROOK on page 46
WHISTLER on page 46
Alex Katz: "Cane Garden Bay," 1974
James McNeill Whistler: "Nocturne in Black and Gold:
The Falling Rocket," 1875, oil on panel.