Florence & Beyond—South Shore Art Center—February 28–April 13, 2003
Florence and Beyond will be a major exhibition of internationally renowned American painters who together embody the latest generation in a long-established tradition of foreign artists working in and around Florence, Italy. These artists received their training in, and continue to draw inspiration from, the Tuscan landscape and time-honored Italian principles of figural representation. The show is a contemporary manifestation of the ongoing phenomenon of Americans whose lives, works and artistic beliefs constitute an unbreakable link between what is still, comparatively speaking, the New World, and the ancient and revered culture of Central Italy.
The exhibition will be ambitious and has already become the focus of scholarly and artistic interest in the Boston area, complementing and updating as it does, such important exhibitions as the Lure of Italy at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1992 and continuing the exploration of the cultural traditions of the Grand Tour. Dr. David Nolta will curate the show and write the exhibition catalog.

A special subsidiary concern of the exhibition will be its investigation of the phenomenon of teaching and studying in Florence, as each of the artists whose works are the focus of the show was either a pupil or teacher of one or more of the others. The exhibition will afford a special insight into the way in which the torch of artistic practice-including techniques that go as far back as renaissance fresco decoration-is passed on and shared among a community of painters whose careers and visions repeatedly bring them back to their Florentine experience. It will also provide residents, students, art students and educators with a rare opportunity to view artwork usually on exhibition only in major galleries and museums.

Artists in Exhibition
The American artists to be included in the show occupy a unique position among contemporary practitioners not only of the landscape genre, but also as portraitists, large-scale muralists, and painters of still life. Their work consistently receives the highest praise from critics and the public alike. Frank Strazzulla, the artist who spearheaded this initiative will be joined by the following artists: Charles H. Cecil, Florence, Italy; Kamille Corry, Springville, Utah; Dan Graves, Florence, Italy; D Jeffrey Mims, Southern Pines, North Carolina and Ben Long, Asheville, North Carolina. The six participating artists have all studied and exhibited in Tuscany and share the classical tradition of the Florentine ateliers Their work has been featured in major galleries in the United States and Italy. The work-oil paintings and sketches, as well as finished drawings in a variety of media-will feature landscapes, still lifes, figures and portraits. Following a connoisseurial tradition established by the Medici at the Uffizi, the exhibition will also include a self-portrait by each artist.