Gallery Talk with Deborah Forman on "Go Figure - Exploring the Human Form"

For centuries, art has revered the human form. Within the historical perspective, Go Figure: Exploring the Human Form takes a wide-ranging view of work by artists associated with Cape Cod who interpret the human figure in realistic and imaginative ways. The show opens on September 13 with a public reception from 5:30 – 7 pm and will be on view through February 3, 2019.

In her introduction to this insightful show, Curator Deborah Forman, author of several books on Cape Cod art and its artists, discusses the many ways the figure has been depicted throughout history. She notes the idealized figures of the Greeks and Romans, realistic portraits of royalty and nobility, and the Impressionists’ images celebrating ordinary people. Also noted are Vincent van Gogh’s depictions of the laborer in the fields, Pablo Picasso’s cubist portraits, and Willem de Kooning’s distortions of the female form in abstracted paintings.

Forman chose the artwork for Go Figure from CCMoA’s permanent collection, and then sought loans from individual Cape artists, the Berta Walker Gallery, and private collections. She describes the many approaches that visitors can explore in this exhibition:

Beginning with the realism of Charles Hawthorne, Aiden Ripley, and Robert Douglas Hunter, we move on to the expressionist approach of Howard Gibbs and Elliott Orr. Contemporary images are as fanciful as ones by John Grillo, or as theatrical as Selina Trieff’s dancers and acrobats.

Salvatore Del Deo, Robert Henry and Nancy Whorf put a narrative spin on their figures. The sculptures of Romolo Del Deo and Gilbert Franklin take individualistic approaches to classicism.

Paul Resika takes a look at himself in a self-portrait as does Varujan Boghosian. Carmen Cicero and William Evaul set their figures to music. Norman Mailer draws on himself, and daughter Danielle Mailer’s image is also autobiographical.

Jackie Reeves’s and Richard Neal’s images are made up of a diversity of materials. The attached image is "Steve" by Richard Neal from a private collection.

Deborah Forman is the author of five books published by Schiffer Publishing. They are Perspectives on the Provincetown Art Colony, a two-volume history (2011); Contemporary Cape Cod Artists: Images of Land and Sea (2013); Contemporary Cape Cod Artists: People & Places (2014); Contemporary Cape Cod Artists: On Abstraction (2015). She is co-author with Edith Tonelli of Art from Cape Cod: Selections from the Cape Cod Museum of Art.