Larry Day: Absent Presence

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Gallery Talk

September 2, 2021

Ruth Fine, former curator of Special Projects in Modern Art at the National Gallery of Art, will discuss the works in the exhibition beginning at 6:30 PM in the Harrison Gallery, University Commons, and will be followed by a reception outside the Spruance Art Center.

From her unique position as a noted curator as well as Day’s wife, Fine will provide an overview of Day's work while focusing on specific examples in terms of process, realism, the importance of place, and the role of the observer in the depiction of unpeopled views.

Ruth Fine is a painter, printmaker, and independent curator following her four-decade career with the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. She has written extensively on modern prints and drawings in the United States and African American art.

Receiving her BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art (PCA, now University of the Arts) in 1962, followed by an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1964, Fine took over Benton Spruance’s lithography classes at PCA in 1965. After Spruance's sudden passing in 1967, Fine found herself in the unenviable position of succeeding him in his teaching duties at Beaver College, where he had served as Chair for over 30 years. These included a seminar utilizing Lessing J. Rosenwald’s collection of rare prints and illustrated books at the Alverthorpe Gallery (now Abington Art Center). Fine left Beaver College to take a position curating Rosenwald’s collection in 1972. She later accompanied the prints from the collection as their curator when they were donated to the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Spruance, Rosedale, and Harrison Galleries at Arcadia University
August 30–November 21, 2021
450 S. Easton Road, Glenside

Day’s cityscapes and suburban views, which are the focus of Arcadia University’s "Absent Presence", are measured and uninhabited, paradoxically suggesting the presence of human activity behind walls, doors, and windows. These works demonstrate the artist’s exploration of the visible and unseen geometries of the built environment, as in Three Worlds (1989) and his unique perspective on iconic Philadelphia locations, such as the Waterworks, which are portrayed in his Aquarium (1977).  Day’s early work as a printmaker, foundational to his artistic practice, will be highlighted here as well, including works in which surreal and mythological subjects foreshadow the allegorical and whimsical series of drawings he produced later in his career.

Woodmere Art Museum
September 25, 2021–January 23, 2022
9201 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia

At Woodmere Art Museum, "Silent Conversations" contains the multi-figure paintings and drawings that Day is best known for, including many portraits and self-portraits. They document his exploration of the old masters as a route toward an art of contemporary subjects and demonstrate a deep interrogation of the realms of activity most familiar to his life: the studio, the classroom and the gatherings of friends.
In a number of the works, games that Day enjoyed, such as poker, charades and Twister, stand as metaphors for the eccentricities of human relationships. Large-scale paintings such as Narrative: To the Memory of Matteo Giovannetti (1967) make reference to history and art history, grappling with cultural heritage as determinant of contemporary life. Day was a master draftsman, and his drawings, whether the gender-queering Hercules Dressed as a Woman (1990) or the fancifully surrealist Masquerade (1995), demonstrate his combination of technical virtuosity and visual imagination.
The installation at Woodmere also includes a gallery that showcases the interplay between Day's abstraction and the later figurative works and concurrent cityscapes, serving as an introduction to the three-part exhibition. Day’s work is included in the collections of many museums, including the British Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Woodmere Art Museum.

Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery of University of the Arts
October 8–December 3, 2021
330 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia

Day achieved significant success as an abstract painter in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and his nature-based, expressionist paintings are highlighted in "Nature Abstracted" at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery of University of the Arts. These paintings formed the solid foundation of his artistic presence in Philadelphia and New York; some, such as To Pergamon (1958-1959) make reference to figurative form, while other compositions of gesture, line, and color, such as Untitled (c. 1960) evoke moods of the sky and earth.

A full-color catalogue produced by Lucia/Marquand and distributed by the University of Pennsylvania Press accompanies "Body Language: The Art of Larry Day." 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 retired National Gallery of Art curator Ruth Fine, who married Day in 1983.
 
Throughout, the catalogue explores the working process and relationships between Day’s paintings and drawings. It also features a previously unpublished essay penned by poet and critic John Hollander, a selection of Day’s extensive writings, which include an early work of fiction and essays on Nicolas Poussin, Henri Matisse and Robert Rauschenberg, and an extensive chronology and bibliography that together place Day in the broad artistic context of his period.

Purchase the catalogue