Exhibition to Celebrate Lifelong Career of UB Art Professor Harvey Breverman

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- In celebration of the lifelong career of Harvey Breverman, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the University at Buffalo Department of Art and internationally renowned artist and educator, the UB Art Galleries will present "Harvey Breverman: Humanist Impulses, Selected Paintings, Drawings, Prints."

Breverman's 85th solo exhibition featuring more than 200 paintings, drawings and prints, "Humanist Impulses" will be on view in the UB Art Gallery in the Center for the Arts on the UB North (Amherst) Campus, and the UB Anderson Gallery, Martha Jackson Place near the UB South Campus, from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31.

One of the many events celebrating the investiture of John B. Simpson as UB's 14th president, the exhibition will open with a reception Oct. 1 from 5-7 p.m. in the UB Art Gallery, followed by a reception in the UB Anderson Gallery from 7-9 p.m.

A panel discussion moderated by Douglas Dreishpoon, senior curator at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, will be held from 3-5 p.m. Oct. 2 at the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society, 25 Nottingham Court. Admission is free.

"Humanist Impulses" includes paintings and drawings from the 1980s to the present, as well as a comprehensive survey of Breverman's prints from the past 40 years. Approximately 35 mixed-media works on paper from Breverman's "Nightworks" series, which have not yet been seen in Buffalo, reveal the artist's fascination with surface, religious imagery, architecture and figuration.

Many of Breverman's works document the UB intellectual community. A partial list of luminaries featured in his tableaux include Michel Foucault, Samuel Beckett, James Goodman, Bruce Jackson, Susan Howe, Endi Poskovic, Raymond Federman, Robert Creeley, William Kennedy, Carl Dennis, Leslie Fiedler, W.S. Merwin, Allen Ginsberg, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Diane Christian, John Barth, John Ashbery, Jim Dine, Sigmund Abeles, Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, Tom Wolfe and R. B. Kitaj.

In addition to his work as an artist, Breverman has been hailed as a teacher, receiving the prestigious Distinguished Teaching of Art Award from the College Art Association in 2003. This national award acknowledges Breverman's unique teaching methods, which are grounded in his experiences as a practicing artist, attesting to his life-long devotion both to his art and his students.

A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University (BFA) and Ohio University (MFA), Breverman has been a faculty member in the UB Department of Art since 1961.

Breverman has exhibited his work in New York, Toronto, London, Amsterdam, Oslo, Paris, Bologna, Moscow, Basel, Barcelona, Cracow, Belgrade, Rome, Milan, Vienna, Honolulu, Tokyo, Caracas and Rio de Janeiro. His works are in the collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, The British Museum, Burchfield-Penney Art Center, The Israel Museum, Library of Congress, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, National Academy Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Whitney Museum of American Art.

Providing an in-depth analysis of the artist's paintings, drawings and prints, the exhibition catalog includes more than 40 color plates and essays by Robert J. Bertholf, Charles D. Abbott Scholar of Poetry and the Arts, UB Poetry Collection; Nancy E. Green, senior curator of prints, drawings and photographs for the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, and Bruce Jackson, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Samuel P. Capen Professor of American Culture in the UB Department of American Studies.

The catalog also features an interview with the artist by the exhibition curator, Sandra Firmin; a new poem by Robert Creeley, and reprints of texts written on Breverman by Raymond Federman, Sylvia A. Herskowitz and Stephanie L. Taylor.

The exhibition and catalog have been made possible by support from the College of Arts and Sciences, the CAS Publication Subvention Fund, the Division of University Advancement, the Institute for Jewish Thought, the UB Alumni Association and WBFO 88.7 FM, UB's National Public Radio station.

UB Art Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, call 645-6912, ext. 1424.

UB Anderson Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 1-5 p.m. on Sunday. For more information, call 829-3754.

Admission to both galleries is free.