A Sense of Oneness: The Life and Art of Bernard Langlais
Thursday, September 18, 2014, Portland Public Library, Rines Auditorium
FREE and open to the public
Lecture by Hannah W. Blunt, Langlais Curator for Special Projects, Colby College Museum of Art
Portland Public Art Committee is pleased to commemorate the acquisition of several works by Maine artist Bernard Langlais including sculptures, wood reliefs, abstract works, and bird houses gifted to the City of Portland from the Kohler Foundation.
Artist Bernard Langlais said of his native Maine, “I feel a sense of oneness with the state.” While he forged his early career in Europe and New York City, successfully exhibiting paintings and abstract reliefs, his rustic sensibilities and desire to work on a larger scale brought him back to Maine in the late 1960s. In the last eleven years of his life, he created a lively art environment on his property in Cushing, comprising more than 100 outdoor pieces. In her lecture, Blunt will trace the remarkable evolution of Langlais’s work and career, detailing the artist’s search for deep connections to his environment, and his passionate reconciliation of art and place.
The lecture is being presented by Hannah W. Blunt, Langlais Curator for Special Projects at the Colby College Museum of Art. Ms. Blunt holds an M.A. in Art History from Boston University and a B.A. from Davidson College, and previously served as a research assistant at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Harvard Art Museums. She is currently preparing for a retrospective exhibition, opening July 19, 2014, of the artist Bernard Langlais, whose Maine-coast home she occupied from 2010-12. Blunt has overseen several recent exhibitions at Colby, including The Lunder Collection: A Gift of Art to Colby College, American Weathervanes from a Distinguished Maine Collection, Masterpieces of American Folk Art, and Bernard Langlais: Abstractions and Reliefs. She has contributed to a number of publications, including The Lunder Collection: A Gift of Art to Colby College, Art at Colby, Folk Art in Maine: Uncommon Treasures, and American Paintings at Harvard.
Portland Public Art Committee
publicartportland@gmail.com
Contact: Lin Lisberger, Chairperson PPAC and Julia Kirby, Vice-Chairperson, PPAC