The Artist

A unique view of the diverse and masterful production of Edward Boccia, this exhibition is organized into three genres: the religious and mythological paintings and a selection of portraiture. Long categorized as an Expressionist, Boccia should also be understood as a modern allegorical painter. Boccia had a critical interest in the universal problems of morality and the spiritual life and this is invariably depicted through exaggerated or distorted forms, bright or anti-naturalist expressive color and broken line within compressed space. The associations with the great Expressionist painter and draftsman Max Beckmann are significant. Boccia’s patron the St. Louis art collector Morton D. May owned thirty five of Beckmann’s pictures and in the 1960’s the American artist followed in Beckmann’s footsteps: choosing for many of his finest works the monumental and traditionally public format of the Medieval panel painting. Both artists used Judeo-Christian iconography to illustrate a private and cryptic world of disturbing violence and startling visual effects. However, Boccia also drew upon the great masters such as Titan as well as El Greco’s mannerist elongation and the luminary accomplishments of Caravaggio in order to achieve a proto-classical naturalism and plasticity seen in much of his work. Of his interest in the masters and traditions of the past Boccia said: I believe and respect the power of tradition since it feeds and nourishes.”