Current Exhibitions

 

Brought to you by local artist Jac Lahav, The Great Americans (2010 - Present) is a series of over 35 life-sized portraits re-telling iconic narratives of American history. Lahav’s portraits of famous Americans challenge the viewer's expectations by depicting well-known and under-represented icons in unconventional ways through dress and pose. These works explore the concept of layering in portrait painting, revealing how individual and group identity can be peeled away like an onion skin, but still assume a larger meaning as a whole.

 

This exhibition of Great Americans at the Slater Memorial Art Museum offers an unconventional representation of iconic figures, new and old, who have shaped our perceptions of American history. By doing so, Lahav exposes a clash between image and substance in our contemporary culture and asks the question, “How do we celebrate our shared history through portraiture?"

 

These works are part of a touring exhibition and have appeared at the Richmond Art Museum, the Saginaw Museum of Art, in Michigan, the Longview Museum of Fine Art in Texas, and the Florence Griswold Museum in Connecticut. This iteration of the exhibition features over 12 new paintings of notable Norwich historical icons, including David Ruggles, Sarah Harris Fayerweather, Samuel Ashbow Jr., and many more.

 

 

 

A Southerner by birth, Yankee by choice, and with an advanced degree in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania, Lynn Curlee landed in New York City in 1971 at the age of twenty-three with the ambition to become a painter. After a couple of years of finding his way, Mr.Curlee made his professional debut with a one-man show at Christopher Gallery on Madison Avenue in October 1973. He was off and running, and for the next thirty years made his living as a gallery artist, exhibiting his work primarily in New York, Los Angeles, and the east end of Long Island as life changes took him from place to place. He has lived in Philadelphia, New York City, Los Angeles, Long Island, Palm Springs, and now lives in Norwich, Connecticut.

 

In the early 1990s, Mr. Curlee was offered the opportunity to illustrate a children's book, and to his great surprise, he also began to write them. Gradually, while still exhibiting gallery paintings, making books became the main event. As an author and illustrator, Lynn Curlee has published fourteen non-fiction picture books for children and young adult readers.

 

Mr. Curlee has won numerous awards for his books, including but not limited to a Robert F. Sibert Honor Award, Orbis Pictus Award, ALA Notable Books for Children, Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year, multiple Children's Book of the Month Club Main Selections, and multiple Junior Library Guild selections. He was a finalist for the ALA Young Adult Best Non-Fiction Award in 2020. Three of his books were chosen by the Barbara Bush Literacy Campaign as their Book of the Year in three consecutive years - 2013, 2014, and 2015.

 

His latest book, THE OTHER PANDEMIC - AN AIDS MEMOIR is due to be released in June 2023.

 

With this exhibition, Lynn Curlee celebrates fifty years as a professional artist.