"Max Starkloff: A Retrospective" Exhibition Opens at Bruno David Gallery on March 27

March 19, 2015, St. Louis, Missouri…The Starkloff Disability Institute (SDI) is excited to announce that the artistic exhibition “Max Starkloff: A Retrospective” opens to the public on March 27 at Bruno David Gallery in Midtown St. Louis.

The opening exhibition is 6 to 9 p.m. in the gallery’s Project Room. Admission is free and open to the public.

This will be the first public exhibition of Max’s paintings since 1969. He died in 2010.

“Max’s paintings reveal a truly talented artist,” said SDI Board Member Richard K. Weil, Jr., a former managing editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who helped plan the exhibition with Bruno David and SDI Co-Director, Colleen Starkloff. “This body of work illustrates the importance of art to the human spirit.”

“Max became interested in painting soon after he entered a nursing home after sustaining a spinal cord injury in a 1959 car accident,” said Colleen.

“He was very inspired by the German Expressionists. In the nursing home, a Franciscan artist taught Max how to paint. It was a tremendous opportunity to escape the isolation of an institutional life. Within a few months, Max was painting six hours a day.”

Dozens of Max’s paintings have appeared in exhibitions over the years and were acquired by collectors. One of his best known is “Man and His Rock” inspired by the Greek Myth of Sisyphus. Gods had condemned Sisyphus to roll a boulder to a mountaintop, but the stone would always fall back down.

“Max often thought of himself somewhat like Sisyphus,” said Colleen. “His early work in the disability rights Movement fighting for the rights of the disabled to have access to public buildings, public rights of way, housing, education, transportation and health care were sometimes ignored.

“Like Sisyphus, Max kept pushing his message about equality, independence and a full productive life wherever and whenever he could. Unlike Sisyphus, Max ultimately prevailed. He helped change how millions of people with disabilities live their lives for the better.”

Bruno David Gallery Publications will publish a catalog on the artist’s work with an exhibition history and bibliography and essays by Robert Duffy and Charles E. Claggett.

Bruno David Gallery at 3721 Washington Boulevard is located between North Grand and North Spring Avenues. The gallery is wheelchair accessible. Call 314-588-7090 for information. See the website http://www.starkloff.org/landing/.