Spaightwood Gallery
Andrew Weiner checks in from Upton, Mass., where the former UW-Madison English professor and his wife -- the former chair of MATC's English department -- relocated Spaightwood Galleries two years ago after almost a quarter century across Spaight Street from Orton Park.
The occasion is an announcement regarding Spaightwood's new exhibition, which opened on Nov. 18. Now housed in the former Upton Unitarian Church, about 40 miles west of Boston by way of the Mass Pike, Spaightwood presents "Marc Chagall as Printmaker" through Feb. 19. Spanning from 1923 through 1981, the new show encompasses the artist's early etchings rendered in Paris after his departure from Russia, but also a broad selection of later works devoted to the circus, flowers, musicians, dancers and large-format lithographs on biblical themes.
This is the fourth exhibition Spaightwood has mounted since closing its final Madison show on Nov. 14, 2004 and re-opening at Upton on Jan. 2, 2005 with a group show of works by Joan Miró, Chagall, Pierre Alechinsky, Claude Garache and a dozen other artists familiar to the gallery's patrons during its tenure on Spaight Street.
Since that debut in Upton, the gallery has mounted an Antoni Tapies retrospective; an exhibition of works by Helen Frnakenthaler, Lee Krasner, Judy Pfaff and some 20 other contemporary American women; and now the Chagall show.
Anyone heading to the greater Boston area over the holidays (as well as those who pine for the quiet near-east side Madison fixture and its extensive collections) will find a vast, erudite and art-rich online preview of the show, along with tours of the new gallery, its collections, recent acquisitions and coming attractions.
