FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Waterfall Arts to auction Welliver, Dodd paintings on Thursday, June 23, during its live auction at this year’s gala fundraiser in Belfast.
(BELFAST) On Thursday evening, June 23, Waterfall Arts is hosting a live auction during the organization’s much-anticipated gala fundraiser event: From the Forest to the Sea. The event, while honoring its founders Alan and Lorna Crichton and tracking 20-plus years of the organization’s rural beginnings in Montville to its current home in Belfast, boasts a live auction worthy for all art collectors on which to keep their eyes attuned.
Two of the pieces in the live auction are works by celebrated modern artists Neil Welliver and Lois Dodd.
The Welliver piece, Frank Kawasaki with Two Nudes, is oil on canvas and measures 75 ¼” by 76”.
The Dodd piece is Quarry at Night, and is signed on the lower right “L. Dodd, 1994” and measures 8″ x 15″ framed.
Lois Dodd (b. 1927) was the only woman founder of the Tanager Gallery in NYC, which was integral to the avant-garde art scene of the 1950’s. She was part of the wave of NY modernists (Fairfield Porter, Rackstraw Downes, Alex Katz, Neil Welliver) to explore the coast of Maine post WWII. Her work has been shown all over the US and internationally and her paintings are in permanent collections of many museums including Bowdoin College Art Museum, MOMA in NY, The National Portrait Gallery, The Whitney and the Portland Museum of Art.
Neil Welliver (American, 1929-2005) is best known for his large-scale, vivid paintings and woodcuts of the remote Maine wilderness. Born in the small town of Millville, Pennsylvania, he first studied at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art, followed by Yale, where he worked under Josef Albers and Burgoyne Diller. The influence of these notable constructivists, as well as the rising popularity of abstract expressionism, showed in Welliver’s earlier experimentations in abstraction, including color-field painting, and watercolors of town scenes. He would go on to teach at Yale from the mid 1950s to the mid-1960s, by which time he had moved formally towards the representational, beginning to travel to Maine and paint the landscape there, as well as scenes of nude bathers in streams–their bodies abstracted by the moving water. Although he continued working as the chair of the University of Pennsylvania graduate school until his retirement in 1989, he moved to Lincolnville, Maine, in 1970, and by the 80s was painting landscapes almost exclusively. The resulting body of work nods to many of Welliver’s early influences, as he utilizes natural repetitions and distortions to represent the innate abstraction of the natural world, in a captivating cool palette. These mature works were based on long plein-air studies, where Welliver would carry a 70-pound pack of painting supplies into remote landscapes and sit for three-hours at a time. He continued to paint landscapes surrounding his large property in Maine until his death in 2005.
Frank Kawasaki (1939-2004) was born in San Francisco, son of Ichiyo Keiko “Kawai” Kawasaki. His father was a Japanese diplomat and Frank traveled extensively as a youth. Frank attended the University of Pennsylvania and received his Masters in Architecture in 1966. He worked for renowned architects Louis Kahn and I. M. Pei in Philadelphia and then started his own architectural firm. He was also a colleague of Kahn’s on the faculty at Pennsylvania where he taught drawing for 30 years. After his retirement, Frank relocated to Belfast, Maine.
In addition to these paintings, Waterfall Arts will be live-auctioning a luxury getaway vacation to Mexico, as well as a personal tour of Linden Frederick’s home and studios. A silent auction with more artwork, experiences, and gifts is open currently and will end by 7:00pm on Thursday, June 23, 2022. Visit handbid.com to bid!
Interested collectors and art-buyers for the live auction items must call the Waterfall Arts office to register for over-the-phone bidding by June 22nd at 5:00pm in order to participate.
Launched in 2000, Waterfall Arts is a community arts center that offers resources to arts enthusiasts of all ages and abilities. We welcome the public to engage in the arts through classes, exhibitions, art events, performances, public art projects, open studios (in clay, glass, print, and darkroom photography) and more.
For more information, please contact Kim Fleming at kim@waterfallarts.org.
Frank Kawasaki with Two Nudes by Neil Welliver (1929-2005), oil on canvas, 75 ¼”H by 76”W, is available to phone-in bidders and Waterfall Arts gala guests during its live auction on Thursday, June 23, 2022 in Belfast, Maine.
Quarry at Night by Lois Dodd is signed on the lower right “L. Dodd, 1994” and measures 8″ x 15″ framed, is available to phone-in bidders and Waterfall Arts gala guests during its live auction on Thursday, June 23, 2022 in Belfast, Maine.
