Sara Jesse has moved on to New York from her three years as director of Easton’s Academy Art Museum. But before taking the helm as director of the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Jesse filled the spring-to-summer calendar at AAM with such headliner exhibits as “Albrecht Durer: Master Prints,” opening April 6 and running through July 14, along with “Light: Paintings by Philip Koch,” colorful landscape paintings inspired by the American realist works of Edward Hopper, April 11-July 14.
Starting in 1983, Koch was granted the first of an unprecedented 17 residencies at Hopper’s studio on Cape Cod, which resulted in his 2015 solo exhibit at the Edward Hopper Home Art Center in Nyack, New York.
From Durer’s “Great Passion” series
The Durer exhibit features such celebrated pieces as his “Small Woodcut Passion” (1508-10), “Life of the Virgin” (1503-10), and the complete set of 16 prints from his engraved “Passion” series (1507-12). Originally trained as a goldsmith, Durer turned his avocation into a lifelong career as a painter, etcher, and draftsman noted for the complexity of his naturalistic compositions, making him one of the most influential artists of his time.
Also opening in April is “Heirlooms,” an archival product of research by Darlene R. Taylor into her own ancestry as well as that of black women in Talbot County. Scouring family photo albums, Taylor created mixed-media collages incorporating handed-down mother-to-daughter linens, laces, cotton, and buttons, some of it procured from the museum’s excavation of the former home of Henny and James Freeman, among the earliest documented free black landowning families of the Hill neighborhood in Easton, circa 1787-1828. The home on nearby Talbot Lane was acquired by the Academy Art Museum last year.
The fourth exhibit opening in April is self-explanatory – “Remnants of Childhood: Selections From the Permanent Collection AAM’s Teen Interns,” April 9-June 9.
Meanwhile, Jennifer Chrzanowski is AAM’s interim director.
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“Talbot People II,” the second half of photographer Steve Lingeman’s exhibition at the Talbot Historical Society, encapsulated in his “Talbot People: Stories and Photographs” catalog, remains on display through April 30. And in case you missed part I of his show, it’s now on view at the Talbot County Free Library in Easton through the end of April, with a gallery talk by Lingeman on the 18th.
The Ex family, refugees from Ukraine
As in the first installment, these portraits, the vast majority of which are black and white, though some have singular color highlights achieved by the trick of shooting all the photos in color but printing them B&W. Among the most compelling stories accompanying the Part II portraits of “Talbot People” is that of the refugee family of Jeff and Julia Ex and their children Vlad, Veronic and Rostic fleeing a Russian invasion.
It has now been more than two years since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine. As Jeff tells their story: “On March 2 [2022] we would be safer trying to take the train west to Lyiv or further to Poland. . . . Early on the morning of the 3rd we grabbed our bags and took a bus to the train station . . . the start of our journey to Easton, Maryland, a place I had never heard of.”
Jon and Amy Ostroff are pictured next to the Ex family photo, fittingly so because their legal and diplomatic connections were deployed to rescue Jeff Ex, an American citizen who was engaged to Julia but not yet married to her. In order to obtain U.S. visas for Julia, a Ukrainian, and her children, a marriage license was arranged without the usual six-month wait and they were married in Denmark with Julia borrowing a wedding gown. They are now among the “Talbot People” with a great story to tell.
talbothistory.org/exhibits-
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A retrospective of paintings by the late Bernard Kindt put together by his friend and fellow artist David Stevens takes over the gallery spaces of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at Easton with an open house show-and-sale reception from 1-5 p.m. Saturday, April 6.
Bernard Kindt’s “Choptank River Near Greensboro” painting
Principally a landscape artist, Kindt was a Maryland Institute College of Art graduate who lived in Greensboro for 19 years and fell in love with the marsh and waterfront scenes so abundant on the Eastern Shore. He moved to Florida to take advantage of the greater art festival opportunities of that tourist-friendly state, painting placid vistas not far from his North Port home between Tampa and Sarasota, where he resided until his death in September. The retrospective remains on display at UUFE through May. After the open house, the exhibit can be seen by appointment by calling 443-239-0143.
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If you can’t get enough of beautiful views, Chestertown’s Massoni Art gallery on High Street features paintings by New York-based Grace Mitchell and a little bit of everything – from oils and collage to photography and woodworks by popular Kent County artist Joe Karlik, while other artists at Massoni’s Cross Street location contribute to the collective visual commentary on “Spring 2024” All these works are meant to suggest, as Mitchell writes in her interpretation, that “homo sapiens are hard-wired in our DNA because of the experience of our earliest ancestors who thrived in certain environments and had a greater chance of survival to reproduce, evolve and eventually produce us.” But with an uncertain climate-change future, how long can such serenity last?
Joe Karlik “Blue Vase”
“Spring 2024 opens on First Friday, 5-7 p.m. April 5 and runs through May 5.
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But let us not forget the performing arts: Following up on its grand concerto competition finale on March 24, the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra makes a quick turn-around with three early April concerts, starting at Easton’s Saints Peter and Paul High School at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 4, with a program of Sibelius’ “Finlandia,” “Ethiopia’s Shadow in America” by Florence Price and Dvorak’s Cello Concerto featuring solo cellist Amit Peled. Encore performances will be performed Saturday, April 6 at Epworth United Methodist Church, Rehoboth Beach, and Sunday, April 7, at Community Church, Ocean Pines – both at 3 p.m. – Michael Repper conducting.
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Meanwhile, the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra competes for your attention the following weekend with its “Masterworks V: Roman Festivals” concert boasting a world premiere co-commissioned by the ASO through an “Embracing 21st Century Voices” partnership with the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. The commissioned work is composed by Nicky Sohn, a Juilliard and Mannes School of Music grad now pursuing her doctorate at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. Also on the program is Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in G Major, Opus 58 with soloist Awadagin Pratt, and Respighi’s “Feste Romane” P. 157, a four-movement tone poem. Concerts are Friday and Saturday, April 12 and 13 at Maryland Hall, Annapolis, and Sunday, April 14 at Strathmore Music Center, North Bethesda.
Steve Parks is a retired New York arts writer and editor now living in Easton.
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