ACME Fine Art's autumn season will open with
a retrospective exhibition of still life paintings by the noted
20th century modern artist Kenneth Stubbs. The exhibition will
be comprised of a fine group of paintings - in a variety of media
- that date from between 1934 and 1965. The still life as a genre
was an important subject for Stubbs throughout his career, and
the paintings selected by gallery director David Cowan for this
exhibition demonstrate the lasting vitality of the still life as
a subject.
Kenneth Stubbs was a gifted artist and teacher
who had an unwavering allegiance to modernism. In the early 1930s
he studied in Provincetown with E. Ambose Webster, who is considered
by many to be Provincetown's first important modernist. Webster's
Summer Art School was the first of numerous art schools on Cape
Cod to emphasize a modern point of view. Stubbs was one of Webster's
most important students, and Webster became to Stubbs a mentor,
an inspiration, and a colleague. Like his mentor, Stubbs was dedicated
to the dissemination of modern ideas through his artwork and teaching.
He taught for many years at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington
D.C., and the Corcoran also became an important venue for the exhibition
of his work.
In recent years the Cape Cod Museum of Art and
the Provincetown Art Association and Museum have mounted retrospective
exhibitions of paintings and drawings by Kenneth Stubbs. ACME Fine
Art has represented the artist's estate since 2002, and in 2003
an exhibition of landscapes titled Shorescapes, was the gallery's
first solo exhibition of Stubbs' work. It was one of the gallery's
most successful shows to date, drawing an enormously positive response
from fans of more traditional forms of expression and from dyed
in the wool modernists alike.
Stubbs had a fundamentally clear and consistent
artistic vision; yet he, unlike many artists of his generation
- was able to grow artistically without ever needing to negate
or reject what had gone before. The paintings that comprise the
basis for this exhibition were selected to demonstrate the remarkable
arc of Stubbs' growth as an artist. Many of the paintings have
not been exhibited since they were contemporary; nonetheless, each
has a brilliantly fresh look that is evocative of the best of the
period from which they come without losing contemporary appeal.
Through his persistent use of universal themes in combination with
his rigorous intellectual and artistic point of view, Kennth Stubbs
was able to communicate a view of the world that is lasting, and
continues to be relevant.
ACME Fine Art's exhibition of still life paintings
by Kenneth Stubbs will open with a reception at the gallery from
6 to 8 o'clock on Thursday evening 8 September 2005. The exhibition
will run through 8 October 2005. A catalogue that includes illustrations
of twelve paintings from the exhibition and an essay by Gail R
Scott are available through the gallery. ACME Fine Art and Design
is located at 38 Newbury Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02116.
For further information please contact the gallery
at 617 585 9551 or at info@acmefineart.com.
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