LEWISTON — The Gallery at LA Arts will present new paintings by Lewiston native William Manning. The exhibition, “William Manning: SOLITUDE,” features a newly completed series of abstract artworks. The exhibition will be on view at the Gallery at 221 Lisbon St., March 5 to April 28. The gallery is free and open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday.
Manning, who was born in 1936, grew up in Lewiston and has lived in Maine his entire life. An artist who was strongly influenced by the Abstract Expressionist movement, Manning’s works combine geometric and organic forms that are emotional responses to the Maine landscape.
Manning observes that landscape paintings are, in many ways, abstractions of what the artist actually sees, his abstractions are no less representational. The newly completed SOLITUDE paintings are lyrical in their composition and reveal an experienced and sensitive use of color.
For more than 40 years, Manning spent the fall season on Monhegan Island, which has served as an inspiration for prominent 20th century artists, such as George Bellows, Robert Henri and Rockwell Kent. As an abstract artist, Manning has taken a different approach in his responses to the island landscape, but as a native of Maine, Manning feels that he has a better understanding of and feeling for the place.
A recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the MacDowell Colony, as well as being a finalist for the Prix de Rome, Manning taught for 10 years at the Portland School of Art (now the Maine College of Art) before becoming one of the co-founders of the Concept School of Visual Studies, in Portland, where he taught from 1969 to 1973. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad. He has had solo exhibitions at the Farnsworth Art Museum, the Bates College Museum of Art, the University of New England Gallery of Art and at Woudrichem in the Netherlands.
“Solitude” by William Manning
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