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“Wednesday Pictures,” an exhibition of recent works by Thomas Nozkowski, one of America’s foremost abstract painters, will be displayed in Lafayette’s Williams Center for the Arts gallery Oct. 18-Nov. 22.
Nozkoswki, Detwiller Visiting Artist at Lafayette, will give a public lecture 4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 6, in room 108 of the Williams Center. A reception for the artist will follow.
He also will meet earlier that day with the “Vision” First-Year Seminar taught by Robert S. Mattison, Marshall R. Metzgar Professor of Art History, and the Principles of Art class taught by Kim Thomas ’90, visiting part-time instructor of art.
The exhibition title refers to work that Nozkowski does on Wednesdays in his New York City studio, where he stays when he travels from his upstate New York home to teach at Rutgers University on Tuesday and Thursdays.
Nozkowski prefers to work on a small scale. His canvases usually measure around 16 by 20 inches, and the Wednesday Pictures — done on museum rag board left over from cutting mats — are about 12 by 16 inches. Despite their small size, the paintings have a large presence.
“Though buoyant and airy, they have weight, and that comes from meaningful content,” wrote Sid Sachs in a catalog essay for a recent exhibition at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery. Nozkowski’s biomorphic images are developed from reactions to specific memories — of art, of his daily life experiences, and of nature.
“As in his other paintings and drawings, each visual language is given the same attention, and none is determined to be more important than any other,” writes art critic John Yau. “It is this visual promiscuousness that gives Nozkowski’s paintings their frisson; he is not loyal to one kind of language or style, but to the painting itself. It’s only after prolonged looking that we see the different visual languages that Nozkowski has seamlessly cobbled together. That’s the undeniable magic of his work. And, as we soon learn, each painting and drawing is different.”
Nozkowski’s works have been exhibited in more than 40 solo exhibitions worldwide, including shows last year at Max Protetch Gallery, New York; Michael Berger Gallery, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, N.Y.; University of Connecticut, Storrs, Conn.; and Ace Gallery, Los Angeles, Calif.
His art is represented in many permanent collections, including those of Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Mass., Brooklyn Museum, New York, Centre National des Artes Plastiques, Paris; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y.; and The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Nozkowski is a winner of The American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Painting, 1999, and Purchase Prize, 1998 and 1999. He has received fellowships from John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1993) and New York State Foundation for the Arts (1989), as well as a New York State Creative Artists Public Service Grant (1985) and National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Grant (1984).
Born in New Jersey in 1944, Nozkowski earned a bachelor’s of fine arts from The Cooper Union in 1967.
Gallery hours are noon-5 p.m. Monday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday; and 2-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and before public performances in the Williams Center, which is located at the intersection of Hamilton and High Streets on Lafayette’s main campus.
For more information, call the gallery at 610-330-5361 or email artgallery@lafayette.edu. Exhibitions are free and open to the public.
The exhibition series is presented under provisions of the Frederick Knecht Detwiller Endowment. The Williams Center gallery is funded in part through a grant from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and National Endowment for the Arts.