Anomie 1876 - The School Play, 1993, acrylic on canvas, 80 x 86 inches
Visions of a Century: A Tribute to the Life and Work of Arnold Mesches
ON VIEW: January 12 - March 11, 2017
OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, January 12, 6 – 9 PM
HATHAWAY is proud to present a solo exhibition by painter Arnold Mesches (1923-2016). Mesches was born in the Bronx, New York. He has had more than 140 solo exhibitions, including countless group shows, in a career spanning six decades. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others. He has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts, a New York State Fellowship, a Florida State Fellowship, and three Pollock-Krasner Grants. In 2009, the University of Florida awarded him an Honorary Doctorate. Before his passing in November of this year, he lived in Brooklyn, NY and Gainesville, FL with his wife, author Jill Ciment. Mesches influenced a great number of painters as both a friend and a teacher throughout his lifetime.
In this sizable solo exhibition, Mesches’ painting series, ANOMIE 1492-2006, will be highlighted, as well as works on paper from his War Images series (1958-1961). The later is group of drawings that illustrate the horrors of Holocaust concentration camps. Mesches painted the extended Anomie series from 1989 to 2006, creating an alternate timeline of recent history. The heroically rendered works layer significant historical events, largely from the 20th century, with the artist’s own visions of the present.