When you look at nature from a distance, you can see how it all fits together. There is a harmony, and that is what interests me. - Lennart Anderson

After a fall run at the New York Studio School, Lennart Anderson: A Retrospective is on view at the Chauncey Stillman Gallery - Lyme Academy of Fine Arts from January 14 through March 18, 2022. Described by the New York Times as one of the "most prominent and admired painters to translate figurative art into a modern idiom,” Lennart Anderson (1928-2015) was an American artist renowned for his mastery of tone, color, and composition, and for a teaching career that deeply influenced future generations of painters. 

Curated by Artistic Directors Amaya Gurpide and Jordan Sokol in collaboration with the artist’s estate and the New York Studio School, the Lyme Academy will be the second venue for this first major survey of the artist since his death in 2015. The exhibition brings together over 25 paintings and drawings from both public and private collections, including paintings from the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Bank of New York Mellon Collection, as well as from Anderson’s own gallery, Leigh Morse Fine Arts. In addition to several works featured at the exhibition's opening at the New York Studio School, newly selected works that emphasize the artist's sensitivity to portraiture and the intimate relationships he formed with his subjects will be featured at the Lyme Academy.

"As a painter I've studied Lennart's work for years, so the opportunity to co-curate this exhibition has been particularly meaningful,” says Jordan Sokol. “Lennart's paintings brilliantly fuse the figurative tradition with a modern sensibility, making his work especially relevant for the Lyme Academy, as well as generations of painters after him." 

The exhibition is accompanied by a scholarly catalogue that pairs more than fifty full-color reproductions of Anderson’s work with essays by art historians Martica Sawin and Jennifer Samet and painters Susan J. Walp and Paul Resika. Catalogues will be available for purchase at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts during the course of the exhibition.

Born in Detroit, Lennart Anderson (August 22, 1928 - October 15, 2015) studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, Cranbrook Academy, and at the Art Students League under Edwin Dickinson. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and National Academy. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Arts grant, the Tiffany Foundation grant and the Prix de Rome. Anderson’s work is in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Delaware Art Museum, among others. He taught at Columbia University, Yale University, and served as a distinguished professor emeritus of Brooklyn College. The Estate of Lennart Anderson is represented by his longtime gallerist, Leigh Morse Fine Arts, New York.

Following its presentation at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, the exhibition will travel its next venue, the Southern Utah Museum of Art.

The Chauncey-Stillman Gallery at Lyme Academy of Fine Arts is located at 84 Lyme Street, Old Lyme, CT. The gallery hours are 10am-4pm daily. Entrance to the exhibition is free, donations are welcome. Free parking is offered onsite.

Learn more by visiting www.lymeacademy.edu.