Cummings-inspired art at Richmond

This year's fall season at the University of Richmond Museums opened with the Stanley Boxer exhibit, where splashes of vibrant color accent canvases textured with gritty sand, rough sawdust, bark and sparkling glitter.

Elizabeth Stevens, an independent scholar, curated the Boxer exhibit, which was made possible through collaboration between The University of Richmond Museums, the Housatonic Museum of Art and the Boca Raton Museum of Art.

Walking through the Stanley Boxer exhibit in the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum in the Modlin Center, there's a significant change in the style of the artwork, which is arranged in chronological order, stretching from 1946 to 2000.

Heather Campbell, the University of Richmond's curator of museum programs, and Elizabeth Schlatter, Richmond's deputy director and curator of exhibitions, said Boxer's earlier paintings had been similar to the works of Picasso and Matisse. There is a definite cubist element to Boxer's earlier paintings, she said, and one can notice specific objects that are placed in the paintings.

In Boxer's later paintings, these identifiable objects seem to dissolve, Schlatter said. Boxer's paintings become more abstract and focus on pattern and texture, she said.

Boxer worked with a palette knife to create these assorted textures, Campbell said, using thick paint against the canvas that looks like icing on a cake.

Most of Boxer's last works are extremely bright and delve even deeper into an exploration of texture. Sawdust shavings, glitter and string may all appear in a single painting that is splattered with neon colors.

Not only do Boxer's paintings become more abstract as the exhibit goes on, but so do his titles. Boxer's titles are a series of run-on words such as "becalmedstrutoffallparadise."

"His titles were inspired by E.E. Cummings, who often put inventive words together and used run-on sentences," Schlatter said. For this reason the exhibit is titled, "Remeberingstanleyboxer."

Four paintings in the Stanley Boxer exhibit belong to the University of Richmond art collection, which contains 8,000 pieces of art, as well as 10,000 natural science items and decorative art pieces, such as vessels from Greece and drinking glasses from Britain.

The Boxer exhibit will be on display until Oct. 4, but the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art isn't the only place to view art at the University of Richmond. Exhibitions will also be held at the University's other museums: the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center and the Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature.

Byzantine coins are currently on display at the Lora Robins Gallery and a collection of zen ox-herding pictures by John Cage will be on display in the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center starting Oct. 2.

There is also a collection of student art that is currently on display at the Pickels Gallery in the Modlin Center. University of Richmond studio art professors select several pieces created by their students to place in the gallery each fall, Schlatter said.

The University of Richmond Museums also host lectures to accompany exhibitions. A lecture with Elizabeth Stevens titled, "It's Only Natural: The Art of Stanley Boxer," will be held at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 3, in the Cousins Studio Theatre. A reception and viewing of the exhibit will follow in the Harnett Museum of Art.

The assortment of paintings, sculptures, photos and natural science pieces at the University of Richmond Museums this fall is rich with variety, like the items found on Boxer's canvases.

Contact reporter Ryan Clark at ryan.clark@richmond.edu