With WHO KNEW? Paintings by Hazel Carby, Paul Fry, Richard Lalli, and John Loge the Gallery at the Whitney is pleased to host an art exhibit by distinguished Yale faculty known much more for their teaching and scholarship-or, in the case of Dean Loge, for his long service to Timothy Dwight College-than for their work in oils, acrylic, or watercolor. Each of the artists has a compelling vision, as visitors to the exhibit will readily see. Yet as different as their approaches are, the artists share an interest in light, color, frames of vision, and how we see nature, giving the exhibit the air of a lively conversation on these themes.
WHO KNEW? inaugurates what the Gallery at the Whitney hopes will be an ongoing occasional series of exhibits highlighting the unsung talents of Yale faculty.
Hazel Carby, Charles C. and Dorothea S. Dilley Professor of African American Studies and Professor of American Studies, describes her painting as “a secret pleasure that has allowed me to dwell in the world of light and shade, contrast and texture to be found along the Connecticut shoreline and the pristine lakes and north woods of Vermont.”
Paul Fry, William Lampson Professor of English, grew up inspired by his artist father and majored in both art and English as an undergraduate. He describes his current work from around his house in Nantucket as attempting “to record the disappearance of landscape into abstraction” and seeking “to represent every possible sense of the expression ‘visual field,’ not omitting the field one walks across.”
Richard Lalli, Professor of Music (Adjunct), Artistic Director of the Yale Baroque Opera Project, and Master-designate of Jonathan Edwards College, is drawn to the rhythm of painting and the play of pure colors. His declared subject matter may be the interaction of colors, but he also confesses to “loving nature (wild and unlimited) juxtaposed with buildings (controlled and safe) as ideas to work from.”
John Loge, for nineteen years Dean of Timothy Dwight College and longtime teacher of nature writing, took up painting at the encouragement of a friend. Of his work he says, “I try to capture my ‘felt sense’ of a place and its mysteries and secrets. My paintings are small because I feel the small size has a way of bringing the viewer into the landscape, which seems to happen to me as I paint.”