"Overview: The Art of Fannie Hillsmith and Walter Kamys"
2000-06-10 until 2000-08-02
Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery
Keene, NH, USA United States of America

Fannie Hillsmith and Walter Kamys, two life-long artists influenced by surrealism and cubism, will be the focus of the summer exhibition at the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery in Keene. Both artists are in their 80s and continue to develop their style using some of the influences from their early work. Hillsmith and Kamys were among the many artists influenced by cubism and surrealism in the 1940s and '50s. The exhibit will include 20 to 30 pieces from each artist. Kamys's work is bright and colorful while Hillsmith's pieces range from the colorful to the monochromatic. Although their work looks very different, they have a similar abstract core and expressive delineation. The exhibit will highlight how both artists personalized their influences and brought fresh visions to their work throughout long careers.

Many life-long artists reach a certain level and remain there, but Fannie Hillsmith and Walter Kamys continue to reinvent themselves, explains Maureen Ahern, director of the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery.

Walter Kamys, who lives in Sunderland, Mass., was a professor of art at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he also was director of the University Collection Art Acquisition Program. He was born in Chicago and graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He continued art studies on a fellowship in Mexico where he shared studio space with the English surrealist painter Gordon Onslow-Ford. He also was influenced by abstract expressionist, Robert Motherwell. Kamys's many honors include the Prix de Rome in New York.

Fannie Hillsmith, who lives in New York City, spends the summers in Jaffrey, N.H. She was born in Boston, Mass., and attended the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Art Students' League in New York. She recalls that Paul Klee influenced her early work but she also was motivated by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Her work is found among the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and many other art galleries including the Thorne.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of New Hampshire

Other Important Exhibitions in United States