Harris's paintings will occupy the Montserrat College of Art Gallery, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA in the exhibition, Without Likeness: Paintings by Anne Harris from June 2 - July 11. The opening reception for the show is Fri., May 30, 6 -- 8 p.m. in the gallery. Harris will conduct a Master Class at the College May 29 - June 2 and will give a slide talk Thurs., May 29 at 7 p.m. at 292 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA; it will be free and open to the public.
Without Likeness: Paintings by Anne Harris was organized by Alison Ferris, curator of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, ME, where the show was exhibited January 24 through March 23. The show features major works produced by the artist over the last eight years, offering viewers the unique opportunity to see pieces by an artist who works so meticulously that she rarely completes more than five paintings in a year. Since many of her paintings are in private collections, this exhibition is the rare occasion in which a viewer might examine an extended body of her work in one place.
Harris's pieces, which range from her focused self-portraits to her invented adolescents, confound the expectations of traditional portraiture. Working within a realist mode, she offers up formal and psychological abstractions that challenge figurative forms and techniques in order to provide a new context for both subject matter and realist tradition. She uses methods, techniques, and iconography that refer to paintings from earlier centuries while unsettling these traditions through subtle inversions, exaggerations, and reordering.
Harris's work is well known to an east coast audience. Before moving to Chicago, she taught at Yale University, Portland College of Art (now Maine College of Art), Boston University and Bowdoin College. She has had numerous solo exhibitions at the DC Moore Gallery in New York and Nielsen Gallery in Boston, both of which represent her work. She has been included in a number of group exhibitions, most recently Painting in Boston: 1950-2000 at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA. Harris is the recipient of a number of prestigious awards including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1997 and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Painting.
The exhibition and catalog are made possible through the support of the Stevens L. Frost Endowment Fund; the Elizabeth B.G. Hamlin Fund; and gifts from Bridget Moore of the DC Moore Gallery, NYC and Nina Nielsen of the Nielsen Gallery, Boston, MA. The Monsterrat College of Art Gallery would also like to acknowledge support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
What: Without Likeness: Paintings by Anne HarrisWhen: June 2 - July 11Where: Montserrat College of Art Gallery, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MAOpening Reception: Fri., May 30, 6 -- 8 p.m. Free and open to the public.Artist Talk: Thurs., May 29 at 7 p.m. at 292 Cabot Street. Free and open to the public.Summer Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. -- 5 p.m. Gallery Events Hotline: 978-921-4242 x1319
Master Class InformationMaster Class with Anne Harris Thurs., May 29 -- Sun., June 1. Open to working artists and advanced students. This intensive 3-day workshop will investigate the three dimensional aspects of the human figure with an artist who employs realist forms and techniques to explore psychological abstraction. For more information, call the Montserrat Gallery Office: 978-921-4242 x1223.
Note: Supplemental visuals of Harris's work are available upon request.
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