Detail, Self-Portrait, 1995. Oil on panel. 30 x 24 in. UMUC.
Joseph Sheppard will take part in book signings, tutorial sessions for classes of art students and personal appearances at the three institutions featuring his art. |
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November 05, 2002-The metropolitan-Washington, D.C. area plans to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Baltimore-born artist/sculptor Joseph Sheppard by displaying portions of his massive traveling exhibition, Joseph Sheppard: 50 Years of Art, which opened in Pietrasanta, Italy, in September 2001, at three Maryland venues simultaneously this fall. The artist will also take part in book signings, tutorial sessions for classes of art students, and personal appearances. Joseph Sheppard: 50 Years of Art is supported by the Butler Institute of American Art, Dorothy L. and Henry A. Rosenberg, Jr. Foundation, Inc., Fonderia d'Arte Massimo Del Chiaro, Forbes Foundation, Harvey N. Meyerhoff Fund, Jack & Jean Luskin Philanthropic Fund, and Charlotte Truesdell. Following are the dates and locations of Joseph Sheppard exhibitions.
The Walters Art Museum: Ringside: The Boxing Paintings and Sculptures of Joseph Sheppard"
November 10, 2002 - March 9, 2003
600 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201
A number of the paintings in Ringside were originally created for the larger exhibition, Joseph Sheppard: 50 Years of Art. For that exhibition, Sheppard chose 20 of his early works and re-created them in a larger format. The Walters exhibition will feature eight paintings, four sculptures, and one chalk drawing on paper. Highlights include two of the artist's self portraits, Mr. Mack's Fighters' Gym, which in 1963 won first prize in the annual exhibition at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, and a new interpretation of Knockdown, which Sheppard painted first for a 1964 Sports Illustrated cover. The Walters exhibition is supported by the Dorothy L. and Henry A. Rosenberg, Jr. Foundation, Inc. Additional support is courtesy of the Forbes Foundation and the Jack & Jean Luskin Philanthropic Fund.
For information about Ringside or about the Walters Art Museum, please call 410-547-9000 or visit www.thewalters.org.
Admission: $8 for adults, $6 for senior citizens, $5 for college students and young adults (18-25) with ID, and free for children 17 and under and for members. Admission is also free on Saturdays from 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. and all day on the first Thursday of every month.
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.; first Thursday of every month from 10 a.m. - 8 p.m. The museum is closed on Mondays.
Evergreen House, The Johns Hopkins University: Joseph Sheppard: The Early Years
November 14, 2002 - January 26, 2003
4545 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21210
Special Event: December 4, "The Early Years: Recollections by Joseph Sheppard," 5 - 7 p.m. Exhibition gallery open from 5 - 6 p.m., lecture at 6 p.m. Joseph Sheppard will present a slide lecture in the Bakst Theatre at Evergreen House. Free to the public. Info: 410-516-0341.
The exhibition at Evergreen House highlights Joseph Sheppard's earliest paintings, beginning with the work he did at The Maryland Institute of Art while studying under Jacques Maroger (1948-52) and continuing throughout the 1950s. Alice Warder Garrett, who lived at Evergreen from 1929 through 1952, was a patron of the arts who encouraged Jacques Maroger, the French painter and former Technical Director of the Laboratory of the Louvre Museum, to immigrate to the United States in 1939 and in 1940, introduced Maroger to the Maryland Institute of Art. Maroger, known for his rediscovery of the mediums of Jan Van Eyck and other Flemish and Italian painters, championed the principals of classical art and the use of the human figure, teaching the importance of drawing and painting techniques of the Old Masters.
Joseph Sheppard began his studies at Maryland Institute painting abstractly. After the urging of his friend Earl Hofmann (a member of the Maroger group) to come and paint at the Maroger studio, Sheppard completed a painting of an interior space which pleased Maroger enough to say, "Paint three more like that, my boy, and I will get you into a New York gallery." Sheppard subsequently studied his remaining two years with Jacques Maroger and never painted abstractly again. Sheppard's association with Maroger and fellow Baltimore realist painters gave rise to the formation of the Six Realists Gallery and acclaim for the painters nationally.
Sheppard's early work, influenced by the social realism of painter Reginald Marsh, combined elements of human figures within scenes of Baltimore's urban life-images taken from life in black ghettos and the bars along Baltimore's Block. Among the more than thirty works included in Joseph Sheppard: The Early Years are street scenes, barrooms, fighters, and strippers.
Admission: $3 for exhibition only. $6 for adults, $5 for seniors, $3 for students for house tour and admission to the gallery.
Hours: Monday - Friday from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday from 1 - 4 p.m.
University of Maryland University College (UMUC): Joseph Sheppard: 50 Years of Art
Nov. 17, 2002 - March 16, 2003
3501 University Boulevard East, Adelphi, MD 20783
The exhibition at UMUC will have the most Joseph Sheppard works-20 paintings, 13 drawings, and 11 sculptures-covering his 50 years as an artist, as his reputation came to be drawn mainly from his vibrant renderings of the human figure. The works include paintings, portraits, drawings, and sculptures. UMUC owns five Joseph Sheppard works, some on loan to the Evergreen House because they portray his early years in art. The university has the state's largest collection of art by Maryland artists.
Said the artist about the exhibition at UMUC: "Over the past fifty years I have painted and sold nearly 2,000 paintings. I think perhaps out of those there were 20 that had special meaning to me as far as subject and composition. I have selected these 20 and revisited them. I do not copy them, but use them for inspiration instead, recreating them on a larger format, and hopefully, after all these years, adding something new and special. These I will display at UMUC."
Admission: Free
Hours: 8:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. daily
About the Artist
Joseph Sheppard was born in Owings Mills, Md., in 1930. From 1948 - 1952, he attended the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), where he studied with Jacques Maroger, the former technical director of the Louvre. Throughout his career, Sheppard has received many awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Traveling Fellowship to Europe in 1957. He was Artist-in-Residence at Dickinson College from 1955 - 1957 and, until 1975, taught drawing, anatomy, and painting at MICA.
Sheppard is internationally acclaimed for his vibrant paintings, drawings, and sculptures. His works are in many public and private collections in the United States and abroad, including those of the Butler Institute of American Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Carnegie Museum of Art. The artist's many books on anatomy, drawing, and paintings have been translated into French, German, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese. He has been commissioned to paint portraits of President George and first lady Barbara Bush, Baltimore mayor and governor William Donald Schaefer, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, and Cardinal William Keeler, among others. Sheppard was also commissioned to create Baltimore's Holocaust Memorial sculpture in 1988. The artist resides both in Pietrasanta, Italy, where he maintains a studio, and Baltimore.
You may contact the authors of this release, Catherine Pierre at The Walters Art Museum, Beth Nowell at Evergreen House or Andrea Martino at University of Maryland University College, by clicking on their names within this sentence. |
