Penobscot artist Walter Smalling will exhibit paintings of, as he says, “Maine and my world” at the Blue Hill Public Library in a show called, “In the Nature of…” The public is invited to a reception on Friday September 14, 4:30 to 6:30 PM.
According to Walter Smalling, “With my art, I feel that it is not an either/or profession. As a professional photographer for forty years, the work I produce feeds off of and contributes to my work as a painter. And the fact that I am an architectural photographer, seems to make me often paint buildings! While I am what one would call a ‘realistic’ or representational painter for the most part, I look for the essence of the form and color and also the emotional response that a subject elicits in the viewer.”
Smalling is currently under contract to the New York publisher Rizzoli for a book on Maine artists, from the earliest efforts of Jonathan Fisher of Blue in 1789, all the way to today’s Molly Neptune Parker, a Native American basket weaver of national renown. Also covered will be Lois Dodd, Winslow Homer, Fairfield Porter, Alex Katz, Yvonne Jacquette, and about two dozen others.
Walter Smalling lives and works in Penobscot, where he has a studio and a small gallery. His business as a photographer is based partly in Washington, D.C. where he also has a studio. The show will be in the library’s Britton Gallery and Roland Howard Room, available for viewing during library hours subject to the Howard Room schedule. For more information contact the library at 374-5515.
