In conjunction with the exhibition, Still Life: 1970s Photorealism, Cathleen Chaffee, Ph.D., the exhibition’s curator, discusses the paintings, sculpture and prints included in this exhibition. She places this important art movement in the context of critical and audience reception at the time. Dr. Chaffee, who organized Still Life for the Yale University Art Gallery and is now curator at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, presents Imitations of Life: Reassessing 1970s Realism at Nassau County Museum of Art on Saturday, July 26 at 3 p.m.
Photorealists, among them Chuck Close, Audrey Flack, Ralph Goings, Duane Hanson, Malcolm Morley, Ben Schonzeit and Idelle Weber, took photography as their subject, recreating street scenes and bodies with amazing accuracy. A significant trend in art of the 1970s, Photorealism has sometimes been described since then as a more mechanical offshoot of 1960’s Pop art. However, the works in Still Life make a compelling argument that Photorealists captured life in the 1970s with a grittier honesty than has previously been acknowledged. The works on view in the exhibition have renewed relevance as the ability of photography to capture “the real” has undergone dramatic changes and continues to develop in unanticipated ways.
Admission to Imitations of Life: Reassessing 1970s Realism, a talk by Cathleen Chaffee, Ph.D. at Nassau County Museum of Art on Saturday, July 26, is $15 (members, $5) and includes admission to the museum. Register at nassaumuseum.org/events.
Nassau County Museum of Art is located at 1 Museum Drive in Roslyn Harbor, just off Northern Boulevard, Route 25A, two traffic lights west of Glen Cove Road. The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Docent-led tours of the exhibition are offered at 2 p.m. each day; tours of the mansion are offered each Saturday at 1 p.m.; meet in the lobby, no reservations needed. Tours and exhibition-related films screening daily are free with museum admission. Family art activities and family tours are offered Sundays from 1 pm; free with museum admission. Call (516) 484-9338, ext. 12 to inquire about group tours. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors (62 and above) and $4 for students with ID and children aged 4 to 12. Members and children under 4 are admitted free. The Museum Store is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Call (516) 484-9337 for current exhibitions, events, days/times and directions or log onto nassaumuseum.org.
Still Life Lecture At NCMA
