NEW YORK — Renowned painter Pat Adams Ricks, who has made Bennington her home since 1973, has an exhibit opening at Alexandre, 291 Grand St., New York, on Saturday. Adams’ “Large Paintings” will run through April 22.
According to the Alexandre website, the show includes eight of Adams’ metaphysical mixed-media paintings made from the 1970s through the 2000s, and is the first-ever exhibition dedicated to the artist’s large-scale canvases. It will be accompanied by a digital catalogue featuring new scholarship by art critic and historian John Yau, according to the website.
Last spring, the gallery featured a selection of Adams’ work from the 1970s and ’80s. The exhibit received a rave review in The New York Times by Roberta Smith, who described Adams’ paintings as having a “fineness and excess of detail — and therefore of meticulous technique — that astound the eye.”
Brattleboro Museum & Art Center’s Curator Emerita Mara Williams said Adams is what curators would call a member of the second-generation New York School. “She came of age after abstract expression, but still really influenced by the great European artists who came and started teaching in New York,” and also at places like Bennington College, where Adams taught from 1964 to 1993.
Her paintings span from the 1950s to the 2000s. In 1995, she was awarded the Vermont Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.
Vermont News & Media sat down with Adams for an interview in May 2022. The article can be read online at tinyurl.com/yhwbapbh. For more information on the exhibit in New York, visit the Alexandre website, tinyurl.com/ycjxvd4a.
