Harold Rotenberg: An American Impressionist, a special exhibition exploring the career of artist Harold Rotenberg (1905-2011), will open at the Cape Ann Museum on Saturday, April 14 and remain on display through June 17.
For 90 years, Rotenberg devoted himself to painting, creating a remarkable body of work. “Paintings are adventures,” he once observed, adding each one is “a new experience.” Visitors to the Museum will be able to share in this remarkable artist’s adventures as they explore a selection of 40 works created on Cape Ann and around the world.
A native of Attleboro, Massachusetts, beginning in the early 1920s, Rotenberg embarked on a life of creating art and inspiring others to do the same. Through his work at a settlement house in Boston, at the Boston Museum School, the School of Practical Art in Boston and from his own studio, Rotenberg provided instruction to an entire generation of artists, including Jack Levine, Reed Kay, Jason Berger, Barbara Swan and David Aronson.
Rotenberg created a large body of his own work, experimenting with a variety of mediums and moving easily between traditional compositions and abstraction. His mature style was influenced by impressionism and effectively uses color and brushwork as a mean of expressing the uniqueness of place and time. He lived and painted around the world but Rockport held a special place in his heart and the paintings he created on Cape Ann dominate this exhibition.
Harold Rotenberg: An American Impressionist was organized with the assistance of the artist’s daughter, Judi Rotenberg who will present a gallery talk on her father’s work on Saturday, April 28 at 9:30 a.m. A noted artist herself, it is Judi’s hope that this special exhibition will introduce new audiences of art lovers to her father’s work and inspire artists to view their work as “adventures.”
Judith Curtis, a freelance arts writer for publications like American Art Review and author of several books on artists including “H. Rotenberg: an Artist’s Journey,” will speak about his work on Saturday, June 9 at 3 p.m. Curtis is also the curator of the Rockport Art Association, and she lives on Cape Ann.
For more information about the exhibition and related programming, please visit the Museum’s website capeannmuseum.org.