The David
Owsley Museum of Art (DOMA) at Ball State University in Muncie,
Indiana, will display the most important exhibition to date of the art of Larry
Day (1921–1998) from Feb. 24 through May 21, 2022. DOMA is open to the public
with no admission fee from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and
1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Organized
by the Woodmere
Art Museum in Philadelphia, Body Language: The Art of Larry Day
explores the artist’s significant contributions to American art from the 1950s
through the 1990s in a selection of 50 paintings and drawings. The exhibition
is curated by Day’s longtime friend David Bindman, emeritus professor of the History
of Art at University College London and visiting fellow at the Hutchins Center
for African and African American Studies at Harvard University.
The exhibition highlights the most
prominent thematic categories in Day’s career: abstraction, figuration, and the
cityscape. Together, they work in concert to reinforce the artist’s
significance and lasting relevance while revealing Day’s shift from abstraction
to representation.
In
his hometown, Day was known as “the Dean of Philadelphia Painters,” indicative
of his powerful inspiration and impact as an instructor at the Philadelphia
College of Art (now the University of the Arts) and across the city’s many
other art schools.
“Day challenged the dominant Abstract
Expressionist style of the New York art world and charged into the forefront of
artists transitioning to figuration and representational painting,” said Robert
G. La France, director of the David Owsley Museum of Art. “I believe that the
exhibition will be a revelation for many and appeal equally to students, studio
artists, art historians, and the general public. We are grateful to the
Woodmere Art Museum for introducing this modern Philadelphia artist’s work to
Muncie and East Central Indiana.”
EXHIBITION CATALOG
A
full-color catalog for Body Language: The Art of Larry Day is available for purchase from the University of Pennsylvania Press. It
includes essays by David Bindman; Sid Sachs, chief curator and director of
exhibitions at UArts; Jonathan Bober, curator and head of the Department of Old
Master Prints at the National Gallery of Art; and artist Eileen Neff, who
studied with and subsequently taught alongside Day. Also included is a “Memory
Portrait” written by Day’s widow, Ruth Fine, a retired National Gallery of Art
curator.
To watch the Body Language: The Art of Larry
Day exhibition video, click here.