Fluidity: Portrayal of Water in Art
An Exhibition from the Gladys M. Lux Print Collection
March 2, 2012-July 3, 2012

Representing purity, tranquility, power, and movement, water is essential for life but also can cause death and destruction. Water flows over cultural and physical boundaries and people often fight over it. Disputes over its use, control, and conservation roil communities, states and countries. Water is indispensable to human survival, yet many take it for granted and waste or pollute it. For some, it is easily accessible but for others potable water is nearly unattainable.

Water’s surface serves as a metaphor for self-reflection and contemplation, and has inspired many artists. Artists with an affinity for nature, especially those whose primary subject is landscapes, have often chosen water as the focus of their art because of its reflective beauty and emotive qualities. As a universally ubiquitous element appreciated and utilized by all of the world’s inhabitants, the artist knows, as a subject, water may be used to compellingly communicate the artist’s message.

Among artists whose work is in Fluidity is James A.M. Whistler, whose etching Billingsgate, portrays a crowded wharf in London; Gordon Grant’s lithograph, Hauling in the Nets is one of his many works of New England fishing and sailing scenes; and a modernist artist Richard A. Florsheim whose Homeport depicts small sail boats with stylized water from an unusual perspective. Prints by Asian artists Takumi Shinagawa, Ando Hiroshige and Hiroshi Yoshida offer scenes illustrative of color woodcut styles.

Fluidity will open on March 2, 2012 with a gallery talk by Susan Soriente, Curator of the Gladys M. Lux Print Collection. It will close on July 3, 2012. The exhibition may be seen on the second floor of the LUX Center for the Arts in the Gladys M. Lux Historical Gallery.