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Enduring Concerns II: Next Show by James Hennessey

19 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by fineartsbaltimore in Artists, Baltimore Art History, Baltimore Artists, Figure Painting, Italy, James J Hennessey, Landscape Painting, Maryland Artists, MICA, Painting, Uncategorized

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American Academy, Baltimore Artists, Baltimore painters, Exhibitions, Figure Painting, French Landscapes, Italian landscape, Maryland Artists, Sorrento

 

Eutaw Grey: oil on canvas

James Hennessey’s exhibit at the Creative Alliance in Baltimore, Enduring Concerns, closed a few days ago on January 13.  Part II of Enduring Concerns has opened at the Maryland Institute College of Art’s Lazarus Gallery. 131 W. North Avenue, Baltimore, Md., 21201,

About 25 different paintings are hung in the spacious gallery space. Not one repeat from the last show.  This exhibit offers a fresh look at Hennessey’s production from the past 50 years.  He came to Baltimore in 1966 to teach at the Maryland Institute, where he was a member of the painting department for 37 years.

MICA’s Exhibition Department released this description:

Enduring Concerns: Paintings by MICA’s James Hennessey

A career-spanning exhibition by the MICA emeritus faculty member, focusing on work produced in Baltimore from 1965 to the present day.

Reception: Thursday, Feb. 15, 5 – 7 p.m.

Biography:
James J. Hennessey earned his undergraduate degree at Illinois Wesleyan University and a graduate degree at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he studied with Richard Diebenkorn, Wendell Black, and Roland Reiss. Hennessey’s first teaching position was at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, where he was hired in 1960.

In 1962, one of Hennessey’s paintings was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s (MOMA) exhibition, “Recent Painting U.S.A., The Figure”. The show was a juried exhibit that subsequently toured the country after the New York opening. In the same year, the American Academy in Rome, Italy awarded Hennessey “The Rome Prize”. As a result, he was in residence for two years in Rome and exhibited in several galleries both in Rome and Milan.

In 1965 Hennessey joined the faculty of MICA, where he taught until he retired in 2002. During this time he accrued an extensive exhibition record with works shown in New York at the Marilyn Pearl Gallery, the Boris Mirski and Alpha Galleries in Boston, and at the Pensler Galleries in Washington, DC, among others. He directed programs for students, faculty, and professional artists in Italy and France, including the MICA Italian Program in Sorrento, Italy, and the Alfred and Trafford Klots Residency Program in Rochefort-en-Terre, France. His paintings continue to be fueled by his extensive European experiences.

James Hennessey maintains an active studio in downtown Baltimore, Maryland.

 

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James Hennessey, Retrospective at the Creative Alliance, Baltimore, Maryland

28 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by fineartsbaltimore in Art History, Artists, Baltimore Art History, Baltimore Artists, Exhibitions, Figure Painting, James J Hennessey, Landscape Painting, Maryland Artists, Uncategorized

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American Academy, Baltimore Art History, Baltimore painters, Drawing, Exhibitions, Figure Painting, French Landscapes, Irish, Italian landscape, Maryland Artists, Oil Painting

Press Release from the Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland, 21224, 410-276-1651

On View: ENDURING CONCERNS, December 9, 2017 – January 13, 2018
Opening Reception: SAT DEC 9 | 6 – 8PMjim hennessey image
Gallery Talk: SAT JAN 6 | 7PM | FREE

When artist James Hennessey moved to Baltimore in 1965 to teach painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), he never anticipated the influence he would have on thousands of young painters who took his classes until 2002. Beyond his impressive career as a teacher, Hennessey’s success as a painter has seen his signature soft palate aesthetic and subtle depictions of mythological fables exhibited across the globe. Enduring Concerns focuses on Hennessey’s large paintings and celebrates more than 50 years of his work in Baltimore.

James Hennessey is a painter’s painter: his daily studio practice finds him methodically working his large canvases, adding and subtracting inflections of color and light, scraping and sanding away excess, and repeating as necessary to achieve his thoughtful surfaces. While his subject matter varies slightly between series, he concentrates on landscapes, interior spaces, figures, light, and atmosphere in his carefully constructed compositions. Hennessey paces himself when creating work, sometimes taking months to complete a single painting, and generally working on only one painting at a time.

The exhibition’s title, Enduring Concerns, references his steadfast consistency, and intense focus on a small number of subjects. According to Hennessey, “my work is episodic – there are clusters of paintings that fall into categories, such as ‘Windows’, ‘Irish Paintings’, ‘Italian Paintings’, and ‘Furniture’, among others.” All episodes of the artist’s illustrious time in Baltimore will be represented in this rare survey.

Artist Biography:

James J. Hennessey earned his undergraduate degree at Illinois Wesleyan University and a graduate degree at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he studied with Richard Diebenkorn, Wendell Black, and Roland Reiss. Hennessey’s first teaching position was at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, where he was hired in 1960.

In 1962, one of Hennessey’s paintings was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition, “Recent Painting U.S.A., The Figure”. The show was a juried exhibit that subsequently toured the country after the New York opening. In the same year, the American Academy in Rome, Italy awarded Hennessey “The Rome Prize”. As a result, he was in residence for two years in Rome and exhibited in several galleries both in Rome and Milan.

In 1965 Hennessey joined the faculty of MICA, where he taught until he retired in 2002. During this time he accrued an extensive exhibition record with works shown in New York at the Marilyn Pearl Gallery, the Boris Mirski and Alpha Galleries in Boston, and at the Pensler Galleries in Washington, DC, to name a few. He directed programs for students, faculty, and professional artists in Italy and France, including the MICA Italian Program in Sorrento, Italy, and the Alfred and Trafford Klots Residency Program in Rochefort-en-Terre, France. His paintings continue to be fueled by his extensive European experiences.

James Hennessey maintains an active studio in downtown Baltimore, Maryland.

ALEXA

James Hennessey Gallery, website

10 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by fineartsbaltimore in Artists, Baltimore Artists, Figure Painting, Maryland Artists, Painting

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American Academy, Artistic Exchange, Baltimore Artists, Baltimore painters, Drawing, Figure Painting, French Landscapes, Irish, Italian landscape, Maryland Artists, Oil Painting

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=4&pub=5575560308&toolid=10001&campid=5338637638&customid=Photograph+Artworks&mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fitm%2FNikon-D3500-Digital-SLR-Camera-Black-3-Lens-18-55mm-VR-Lens-32GB-Bundle%2F223183887864%3Fepid%3D4026509361%26hash%3Ditem33f6cbddf8%253Ag%253AsLsAAOSwb3hb9Zu7%26_trkparms%3D%252526rpp_cid%25253D5cc1dee8e7abc5604619e775Well, we’ve been talking about creating a web page to show Jim Hennessey’s paintings and drawings for a long time, and we’ve finally done it.  The platform is Square Space, which offers many options for artists, in terms of page design, as well as terrific ongoing support. The link to the page is below and if you would like to type it into your browser you can also get to it via jameshennessey.com

Explore the Website

The Ties That Bind: Domenico Fiorentino, Sorrentine Painter and Baltimore

08 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by fineartsbaltimore in Artistic Exchange, Exhibitions, Landscape Painting, MICA

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Artistic Exchange, Baltimore painters, Italian landscape, MICA, Sorrento

The well-known Italian realist painter, Domenico Fiorentino, of Sorrento, Italy died a few days ago on the 4th of April. What a tremendous loss for the art world–both here and in Italy.  The Baltimore artist Jim Hennessey and I have known Domenico since 1992, when we met while directing a summer program in Sorrento for the Maryland Institute, College of Art.  We led a small group of American students to Italy in order to paint the lush landscape of the South.  I was the program art historian, and my husband Jim was the painter.

Domenico Fiorentino was introduced to us by his son, Antonino, an energetic and enthusiastic connoisseur of the arts, who orchestrated our encounters with this amazing artist.

Our students met with Domenico in the streets of Sorrento where they set up their French easels to paint the buildings and busy market stalls.  On several occasions he joined us on the beach and docks of Massa Lubrense, a small picturesque fishing village where they painted the boats and the rocky landscape.  

Domenico didn’t speak English and the students’ Italian was rudimentary at best and so during these forays Jim acted as translator.

When Antonino–who works as a functionary for the City of Sorrento–had time to join us he spoke with his father about the students’ experiences.  After the long days in the sun we all shared drinks at a nearby bar to cool off before our return by local bus to our hotel and studio.

It was during these encounters that first summer that a link between Baltimore and Sorrento was forged.  It continued and strengthened for several summers, with contact between our young students and the accomplished, Italian master.  When we left the MICA program after 5 years, our saddest moment came when we realized that we wouldn’t be able to interact with Domenico the next year, something we had come to expect and treasure at the same time.

One of the most amusing experiences with Domenico Fiorentino was the day that he and Jim Hennessey proposed a portrait challenge.  They faced off in an upstairs room in Pollio’s ice cream parlor, in the center of town, where the walls were hung with many of Domenico’s paintings. The two artists stared at one another with drawing boards propped on the table and pencils at the ready.  While Antonino and some of the students and I paced the floor, watching the progress, Drew Bacigalupa filmed the encounter.  You can see a few minutes of the challenge on Drew’s youtube video:

Domenico Fiorentino was born in 1923, and he spent his life painting his beloved town of Sorrento and the surrounding landscape. He studied early on at the Sorrento College of Art and then in Naples at the Accademia di Belle Arti.  He came to the attention of the Neapolitan painter Luigi Crisconio early in his life. Domenico’s family owned the pensione “Rosa Magra,” which attracted artists from around the world.  When Crisconio stayed in Sorrento at ” ZI TERESA,” a restaurant and pension in front of the house where Domenico lived, the little boy followed the artist about when he ventured out to paint.  Crisconio befriended the boy and later when he was Domenico’s teacher at the Accademia he encouraged this prolific, committed artist. Fiorentino continued to produce his realistic works that included insightful portraits, as well as the documentary landscapes.

By the time we met Domenico in the early 1990s, he had become an established member of the Sorrentine Plein Air School of Painting and was best known for his landscapes of the region. We were lucky enough to see many of his early portraits when we were shown a large group of his paintings by a local collector.

Domenico generously gave us one of his paintings of the town center. When the artist presented us with his gift we promised that we would frame the painting immediately upon our return to Baltimore.  It hangs today in our living room with other precious works done by artist friends.

The impact that Domenico Fiorentino had on Baltimore and Baltimore artists would be difficult to trace, but I know it was significant.  This kind and gentle man, a devoted painter who took out precious time to interact with our young students, met with more than 40 of them through the years.  He passed on his knowledge and love of painting and also demonstrated to them his devotion to the arts and his life-long work ethic. He will be sorely missed by many of us.

A biography of the artist can be found at this website:  http://reocities.com/Athens/parthenon/8708/prodf.htm

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