Boccia Show Takes Over Slein Gallery

Philip Slein Gallery in the Central West End has filled its entire building with work by a single painter.

The exhibition, titled Edward E. Boccia: An American Modernist, opens on October 23 and runs through December 19. A reception is scheduled from 5 to 8 p.m. on the opening night.

The gallery at 4735 McPherson typically restricts solo shows to its front room. This marks a rare exception in its 23-year history. Gallery owner Philip Slein called the survey a very significant show. He noted that only an institutional venue could host something larger.

Edward E. Boccia was born in New Jersey in 1921. He studied at the Pratt Institute, the Art Students League, and Columbia University. After serving in the World War II Ghost Army, he taught at the Columbus Art School in Ohio. He brought Bauhaus ideas to his students there.

Boccia joined Washington University in St. Louis in 1951. He taught for more than 30 years and retired in 1986 as a professor emeritus. Rosa Berland, an art historian and curator based in New York, described his teaching style as rigorous. She said he encouraged students to find their own kind of fire.

The late artist produced thousands of works before dying in 2012 at age 91. Slein recalled that Boccia was always drawing when not sleeping or eating. The new show features more than 30 paintings. The selection spans his career and includes small seaside scenes and large multi-panel pieces.

The front room displays the large-scale works for which Boccia is best known. These include the nine-panel autobiographical polyptych Eugene's Journey. The room also holds the 2004 triptych David's Death. This piece is one of several meditations on the death of his son.

A hallway section displays mythic scenes of ocean journeys. The figures in these works appear to emit their own inner light. The final room features a salon wall that traces his artistic evolution. It includes a 1950s portrait and a work painted in 2012, shortly before his death.

Influences from Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Renaissance masters, and Max Beckmann appear throughout the collection. A companion book, Edward E. Boccia: Painter of Nightmares and Dreams, will be published by Hirmer during the exhibition. The text is the first major monograph on the artist. Berland spent 14 years researching the project. It includes dozens of images, scholarly essays, and historical overviews.

Berland described Boccia as a polymath who studied philosophy, theology, psychoanalysis, and history. She said he did not want his work to be didactic. A pamphlet prepared for the show includes his quote: Don't worry about what my art means. Just experience it. Berland credited Morton D. May as Boccia's greatest patron. May's collection was gifted in part to the Saint Louis Art Museum. Berland said the story is about a kid from New York who found success in St. Louis. She argued that such work matters now because it demands engagement. She compared the experience to reading a poem or a philosophical text and noted that people do not slow down anymore.