Henry Schwartz, Pierrot Lunaire, 1991
Pierrot Lunaire, 1991
oil and mixed media on panel 18″ x 14″
Collection Danforth Museum of Art
November 22, 2009 – February 28, 2010
Opening Reception Saturday, November 21, 6 pm – 8 pm
Gallery Talks Arthur Dion, Gallery NAGA, and artist Gerry Bergstein will speak about Henry Schwartz on
Wednesday, December 2, 12 pm & Sunday, January 24, 3 pm
Danforth Art is pleased to present an exhibition of work by Boston Expressionist artist, Henry Schwartz. The exhibit will be on view from November 18, 2009 through March 14, 2010. The exhibit will officially open with a special public reception honoring all winter exhibiting artists on Saturday November 21st, 6-8pm. All are welcome to attend.
About the Artist
Henry Schwartz, who was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts in 1927, is arguably the most important of the second generation of Boston Expressionist painters, those who succeeded and studied with the great post-World War II figures Hyman Bloom, Jack Levine, and Karl Zerbe. Those figures had the greatest influence on Schwartz during his years of study at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from 1948 to 1953 before attending Yale University Summer School in 1953, and Akademie fur Bilende Kunst, Salzburg in 1954.
Schwartz produced a large and philosophically ambitious body of work of great painterly invention and dash. His two primary forms have been, first, narrative history paintings and portraits in which figures from cultural and political history are arrayed and examined; and second, autobiographical works examining his own, personal world. At times, these strains have merged.
Schwartz’s exhibitions career is marked by his 1991 retrospective at the Fuller Museum of Art, in Brockton, Massachusetts, which brought together four decades worth of paintings. His work can be found in the collections of the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and the Boston Public Library, among others. The artist lived and worked in Newton, MA until his death in 2009, at the age of 81. See Boston Globe Obituary (click here).
About the Exhibit
Danforth Art continues its commitment to Boston Expressionism with this important exhibit of complex works that depict human emotion by Henry Schwartz. This along with shows by Gerry Bergstein and David Aronson are part of the Danforth Art’s ongoing exploration of work by Boston Expressionist painters, beginning with Jack Levine: Political Discourse in 2005, Hyman Bloom: A Spiritual Embrace in 2006, Arthur Polonsky: Thief of Light in 2008, and Jason Berger: Directed Vision in 2009. Visit Danforth Art’s Boston Expressionism page (here) to learn more about this important artistic tradition in Boston painting.
Related Media
Henry Schwartz 1927 to 2009
Remembering a Second Generation Boston Expressionist
By Charles Giuliano, Berkshire Fine Arts, February 20, 2009