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On 17 September 2009 RICHARD FILIPOWSKI: PAINTINGS & SCULPTURE will open at ACME Fine Art, Boston. ACME Fine Art is delighted to present in this first solo exhibition of artwork by Richard Filipowski in our gallery, a choice selection of sculpture and painting created between 1948 and 1988. We are thrilled to represent the estate of this multi-dimensional, multi-talented artist. A reception from six to eight on Thursday evening (the 17th) will mark the opening. The exhibition will run through 24 October.

Richard Filipowski (1923-2008) was a Polish émigré who began art studies in Toronto at age sixteen. That was 1939, and it is notable that in the same year he won his first important national competition - namely the Vimy Memorial Poster Competition - in Canada. Filipowski continued his artistic endeavors as a student at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago Bauhaus) from 1942 to 1946. While there and under the tutelage of Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, Filipowski pursued interests in painting, drawing, architecture, and sculpture, and he began exhibiting his work at local galleries. In 1944, Filipowski’s first big break came when his work was selected for a landmark group exhibition at the Julian Levy Gallery in New York that was titled Imagery of Chess. The artists comprising the “group” were expatriate European Surrealists for the most part, and they included Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp among others.

Upon receiving his degree at I.I.T. in 1946, Filipowski was invited by Moholy-Nagy to join the faculty there, and thus began a brilliant teaching career that spanned more than forty years. While in Chicago, Filipowski’s work was included in numerous group exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Illinois State Museum, the Benjamin Gallery, and at I.I.T. where he was honored with a solo exhibition in 1947. Filipowski left the Chicago area when Walter Gropius offered him the opportunity to develop and direct the Fundamentals of Design program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1950. Filipowski’s thirty seven year professorship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began with his appointment as Associate Professor of Visual Design in the Department of Architecture in 1952. He was named Professor Emeritus by M.I.T. in 1988.

Filipowski worked back and forth between two and three-dimensional artwork throughout his career. Both aspects of his work - painting and sculpture – have been widely exhibited and collected. In addition to those institutions already mentioned, Filipowski’s work has been exhibited at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, the DeCordova Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, the De Menil Museum, Houston, and the Noguchi Museum, in New York City. Large scale commissioned sculptures were an important aspect of Filipowski’s body of work. Some of those included commissions for Temple Israel, Swampscott MA, Temple Emmanuel, Dallas TX, Temple B’rith Kodesh, Rochester NY, Trinity Lutheran Church, Philadelphia PA, and the North End Branch of the Boston Public Library. Today, examples of Richard Filipowski’s painting or sculpture are in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Addison Gallery of American Art, and the Walter Gropius House Museum among others.

ACME Fine Art’s RICHARD FILIPOWSKI: PAINTINGS & SCULPTURE will be on view at the gallery until 24 October 2009.

For further information about this exhibition or other gallery events, please contact the gallery at 617.585.9551, or via e-mail at info@acmefineart.com.

ACME Fine Art and Design is located in Boston's Back Bay at 38 Newbury Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02116. Gallery hours are 11:00am to 5:30pm Tuesday through Saturday.

selection of works