Notes from Land's End: July 24

Provincetown Raises Its Artistic Bar with PAAM’s Motherwell and Long Point Exhibits

By Laura Shabott

 

Robert Motherwell Exhibit at PAAM
photo by Chuck Anzalone

The international art world convened on Commercial Street for a landmark Cape Cod exhibit: “Robert Motherwell: Beside the Sea” Friday, July 22nd through Saturday, September 30th at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Curators Lise Motherwell, the artist’s daughter, and multiple NEA Recipient Dan Ranalli (PAAM 2010) designed a monumental show featuring twenty paintings and three collages all created in Provincetown from 1962 (Beside the Sea Series) to 1990 (Blue Guitar).


Other works by Motherwell were in the adjoining “Long Point: An Artist’s Place” exhibit. A cooperative formed in 1977 when Provincetown had only five commercial galleries, the combined works of Varujan Boghosian (1926-), Robert Beauchamp (1923-1995), Paul Bowen (1951-), Fritz Bultman (1919-1985), Carmen Cicero (1926-), Gilbert Franklin (1919-2004), Sideo Fromboluti (1920-), Ed Giobbi (1926-), Dimitri Hadzi (1921-2006), Budd Hopkins (1931-), Rick Klauber (1951-), Leo Manso (1914-1993), Michael Mazur (1935-2009), Robert Motherwell (1915-1991), Renate Ponsold (1935-), Paul Resika (1928-), Judith Rothschild (1921-1993), Sidney Simon (1917-1997), Nora Speyer (1923-), and Tony Vevers (1926-2008) when viewed side by side are just astonishing.


This presentation of both Motherwell and Long Point at PAAM is a visual feast; a testament to the masters that call Provincetown their muse; a message to the international art world that the oldest continuing arts colony is a cultural destination with gravitas.
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