The Journeys of John Laub: Fire Island and Beyond at Woodmere Art Museum- April 8-August 13

Woodmere Art Museum is pleased to announce an exhibition of the work of John Laub (1947-2005), The Journeys of John Laub: Fire Island and Beyond, on view from April 8 through August 13.

An artist who enjoyed success in his lifetime, Laub was known for his color-filled and sensuous paintings of landscape, beaches, and notable places of beauty and leisure from the Fire Island and the Big Sur, to Paris, France. This exhibition, the first major exhibition of his work in more than twenty years, offers an overview and a reappraisal of his talent with approximately sixty-five paintings, drawings, and printed works.

Laub often set up his easel and supplies outdoors, interacting with onlookers who were drawn to his joy in applying paint to canvas. Whether his subject was Fire Island, Coral Gables, Martha’s Vineyard or the Adirondacks, his expressive and richly colored paintings evoke life’s pleasures, the fecundity of nature and the beauty of the seasons.

“The key to what’s happening seems to be his instinctive, perhaps unconscious, intuiting of the shapes that momentarily tend toward,” said renowned poet John Ashbery about Laub’s work. “He captures our world at a point halfway between the personal and the transcendental, in a magic state of becoming.”

John Laub studied at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and received a degree in graphic design from Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts). Although he moved to New York in 1984, he maintained a life-long connection to Philadelphia and its arts community. In Philadelphia, his work was shown at the Esther M. Klein Art Gallery (part of the University City Science Center), A. J. Wood Galleries, and the Gross McCleaf Gallery. He was represented in New York by the Fishbach Gallery, which still sells his work.

Laub was a longtime AIDS activist who volunteered as a counselor and supervisor at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. A large portion of his work documents gay social life on the beaches of Fire Island, as well as dances and fundraisers for AIDS-related causes. The exhibition includes several examples of his pro-bono work as a graphic.

Laub had a magical ability to tap into the deep emotions of a perfect day at the beach or the beauty of a chilly afternoon in the woods,” says William Valerio, PhD, Director and CEO of Woodmere Art Museum. “His paint is luscious. When his works are on view in our galleries, our visitors can’t help uttering words like ‘Ahhh’ and ‘Wow!’”

About Woodmere Art Museum

Housed in a 19th-century stone mansion on six acres in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia, Woodmere tells the stories of the art and artists of Philadelphia. The Museum first opened its doors to the public in 1910. The building, grounds, and core of the permanent collection are the gifts of Charles Knox Smith (1845 – 1916). A passionate collector of contemporary art in his day, Smith was a civic leader of wealth and stature, serving on Philadelphia’s Common Council (the precursor to today’s City Council). Born of modest means, Smith’s first job was that of “grocer’s boy,” but he eventually built a successful mining company that was active in Mexico. He lived in downtown Philadelphia most of his life and purchased the Woodmere estate in 1898 with the grand ambition of providing a spiritual experience to the people of Philadelphia through encounters with great works of art in the context of the green beauty of the Wissahickon and Chestnut Hill. Woodmere continues to honor and interpret Smith’s vision of bringing art and nature together, and in recent years has acquired important examples of outdoor sculpture. Woodmere’s Collection consists of more than 6,000 works of art. Exhibitions and education programs “tell the stories” of the artists of Philadelphia, with special attention to 19th-century landscape painting, the circle of Violet Oakley, the circle of Arthur B. Carles, and Philadelphia’s unique brand of modernism. Woodmere’s collection can be viewed online, and the museum encourages artists and their friends and families to use our website to share information about works in the collection.

Studio classes, family activities, tours, lectures, music and film programs, and other special events are scheduled throughout the year.

The Museum is open to the public Tuesday – Thursday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. – 8:45 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., and Sunday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Admission is $10; FREE on Sunday. For more information: woodmereartmuseum.org