There is an aged saw, with lots of variants, that states that the arguments in academia are so vicious simply because they subject so little. Be that correct or not, clearly professional rivalries can direct to petty squabbles and imply spirited snubs.
But that was not the scenario in the romantic relationship among Willoughby Elliott, who died in 2016, and Marc St. Pierre, who passed away in late 2019. Both equally adult males were printmaking professors at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.
Elliott began training there in 1967, when it was still Southeastern Massachusetts College. St. Pierre began teaching at the Swain School of Structure in 1979, and when that little non-public school was absorbed by the state university process, he joined the SMU faculty.
For all concerned, the early times of the merger have been not quick as two distinctive sets of college with differing backgrounds and philosophies labored to purpose as a cohesive unit. Elliott and St. Pierre grew to become amiable colleagues, and then excellent buddies.
That fellowship also sparked a friendship among their wives (Lisa Elliott and Nicole St. Pierre), a relationship that however endures, and has been additional strengthened by the decline of their husbands.
Imagining a dialogue among artists
A retrospective of Elliott’s artwork is on screen at the Marion Artwork Middle. St. Pierre’s art traces the walls at the College Art Gallery in the Star Keep. There is tiny evident similarity involving the work but viewing both of those displays reveals a deep visible conversation, one that was certainly expounded on over the several years, about coffees or at a evening meal social gathering.
Elliott’s paintings at the MAC are a testament to his ability as a colorist. Spread out above two flooring of the gallery, the operate consists of sparse space-crammed continue to lifes of seashells and an array of floral compositions.
But it is in his landscapes of marshes and treelines that he reaches some thing approaching a preternatural use of color. Elliott was a realist painter, doggedly so, and but some of the hues harken to one thing beyond the simply “real.”
In his “Red Marsh,” a quartet of evergreens sits in entrance of a gray and mauve deep woods.The trees glow inexplicably red at their edges, as does the flat foreground. Possibly it is a cranberry bog?
It is difficult to consider that this particular composition of colours at any time actually existed in the true globe, even for a minute, but as a wonderful Spanish painter at the time claimed, “Art is a lie that can make us comprehend the real truth.”
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Other paintings do significantly the similar. Elliott’s “Warm Marsh” features a majestic sky the color of an apricot, while “Shaped by Weather” boldly enables a Pepto-Bismol pink history to pop by way of a dim forest scape.
Black, white and a plethora of grays
St. Pierre’s do the job at the College Art Gallery is devoid of color. All the get the job done is black and white and a myriad of grays. His function is mainly non-objective as he was not depicting everything in the common being familiar with of the word.
A formalist’s formalist, St. Pierre’s work is mostly about the marriage amongst visible things: a curve from a straight line, opacity versus translucency, a deep room versus a shallow a person.
There is a density of form inside all of his perform and even though it would be a mistake to say it is devoid of narrative, the tales he tells in his combined media drawings and collages are about place, process, constructing up and deconstructing.
Generally the titles of St. Pierre’s get the job done suggest a semblance of topic without the need of spilling the plot. In “Transient Map,” some aspects of his work reassert themselves: grids, imaginary aerial sights, crude topography, meteorological symbols, and a curving squiggle that folds again on by itself.
In “Rollover Bayou,” there are a collection of thinly muscled ellipses that might have been intended to propose the “rollover’ of the title. Or possibly not.
What did this conversation in between Elliott and St. Pierre build?
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There is a painting by Elliott identified as “Country Road,” a seemingly idyllic New England scene, additional Robert Frost than Jack Kerouac. But that lavender plank of a road that traverses the woods and jumps out like an assertive ingredient in a Richard Diebenkorn geometric summary portray? What of that?
And in St. Pierre’s “Metropolis,” which while summary, implies condominium home windows, road level storefronts, even a fireplace escape. The title is a wink-wink, nod-nod preemptive respond to to what it is truly about.
St. Pierre was the formalist and the abstractionist. Elliot was the narrative painter and the realist. But close evaluation reveals that they are not all that different.
It was a beautiful friendship. And a terrific dialogue.
“Willoughby Elliott: A Retrospective” will be on display at the Marion Art Heart, 80 Enjoyable Street, Marion till July 16th
“Marc St. Pierre: Black & White” will be on show at the University Art Gallery, UMass Dartmouth Star Keep Gallery, 715 Invest in Road, New Bedford right until September 9.