Helen Cantrell, Love Rockets
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In the fall of 1947, a small group of senior students and faculty from Boston’s Museum School and the Massachusetts College of Art held the first meeting of the Boston Printmakers, whose goal was to promote contemporary printmaking, from etchings and drypoints to lithographs, woodcuts, and serigraphs. The group (as the story is told on the organization’s Web site) mounted their first show the following spring on the fourth floor of the old Paine’s Furniture Store, where intrepid art lovers made their way around bedroom sets and sofas to view the works on display.In the summer of 2005, a similarly adventurous group of current artist members of the Boston Printmakers boarded a flight to China, where they took part in a four-province, five-city tour of the country, from Beijing to Shanghai. The artistic fruits of their journey are on view in “THE BOSTON PRINTMAKERS’ ‘ECHOES OF CHINA’ ” at the Brickbottom Gallery in Somerville through June 24. The 21 artists include Ken Beck, Helen Cantrell, Renee Covalucci, Michael David, Anne Garland, Sheila Pitt, and Prilla Smith Brackett. Their work, and their experiences in China, will be further illuminated by Ken Beck’s talk “Exchange: American Artists Go to China” at the gallery June 1.
The known and the nearby can be as stimulating as the exotic and the faraway. Somerville and Medford have long been recognized as fertile ground for art in the Boston area, and Tufts University Art Gallery has begun to recognize that each year with an annual exhibition honoring its own supportive and creative neighborhood. Organized by Tufts Art Gallery director Amy Ingrid Schlegel and guest curator Mara Williams and opening on June 1, the Aidekman Arts Center’s “THIRD ANNUAL SUMMER EXHIBITION” will include Aparna Agrawal’s mixed-media drawings inspired by the natural world, Nona Hershey’s evocative cloud studies, and short films by Mary Kenny whose sources include a visit to the Australian Bush, northern Canadian fishing grounds, the Brothers Grimm, and South Park.
The Fitchburg Art Museum’s Egyptian Gallery offers ongoing opportunities for virtual travel back to the worlds of the Ptolemiac Dynasty and Ra the Sun God, but this trip takes on a whole new character when storyteller Katie Green presents “AN EVENING OF EGYPTIAN MYTHS AND MAGIC” at the Fitchburg Art Museum June 3. Green draws audiences right into the burial chambers of ancient Egypt through spoken word and music in her well-informed and entertaining performance.
Artist Ken Beck talks about “THE BOSTON PRINTMAKERS’ ‘ECHOES OF CHINA’ ” | June 1, 7 pm | Brickbottom Gallery, 1 Fitchburg St, Somerville | exhibition on view through June 24 | 617.776.3410 | “TUFTS THIRD ANNUAL SUMMER EXHIBITION” | June1-July 30 | Tufts University Art Gallery, 40R Talbot Ave, Medford | 617.627.3518 | “KATIE GREEN: AN EVENING OF EGYPTIAN MYTHS AND MAGIC” | June 3, 7:30 pm | Fitchburg Art Museum, Merriam Parkway, Fitchburg | 781.648.6220 or 6978.345.4207
On the Web
Boston Printmakers: www.bostonprintmakers.org
Brickbottom Gallery: www.brickbottomartists.com
Tufts University Art Gallery: www.ase.tufts.edu/gallery
Fitchburg Art Museum: www.fitchburgartmuseum.org
