BARBARA ERNST PREY: THE PRINT SHOW July 3-20

Port Clyde, Maine - Blue Water Fine Arts is pleased to present Barbara Ernst Prey: The Print Show featuring a series of twenty newly released prints from July 3 to July 20.  New print releases of Hydrangeas and Family Portrait (collection The Brooklyn Museum) produced in collaboration with U.L.A.E., which produces prints of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, are included in the exhibit as are prints of her iconic painting Patriot and her NASA commissioned work. Prey’s prints are in U.S. Embassies worldwide as well as many prominent collections including those of the White House, Orlando Bloom and Tom Hanks. Also included in the exhibit is a selection of small originals offering a preview of her upcoming annual exhibit, showcasing her virtuosic technique, authentic vision and distinctly American style.

 As one of the key figures of 21st century landscape painting, Prey was appointed by the President of the United States to the National Council on the Arts, the advisory board of the National Endowment for the Arts. Members are chosen for their established record of distinguished service and achievement in the arts. Previous members include noted artists Leonard Bernstein, Marian Anderson, John Steinbeck, Richard Diebenkorn and Isaac Stern.  She is the only visual artist appointed to the National Council on the Arts.

Heckscher Museum Director Michael Schantz said of Prey, “Barbara’s flawless technique ranks her among the most important artists who ever painted in the medium.” Sarah Cash, curator of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, writes, “Among the foremost artists at work in the United States today, Barbara Ernst Prey has painted powerful, vibrant views of her surroundings for nearly forty years. There is a powerful sense of human presence-despite the absence of the figure-infused with a compelling aura of place and history that characterizes this group of Prey’s exquisitely rendered, light-filled watercolors. The artist continues to take the watercolor medium, which has an august role in the history of American art, to innovative places.  The New York Times writes, “Prey is going where icons Rauschenberg and Warhol have gone before.”

Prey graduated from Williams College where she studied with Lane Faison and has a masters from Harvard University where she was able to continue her art history studies.  She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and a Henry Luce Foundation grant for her art which enabled her to travel, study and exhibit extensively in Europe and Asia. She is an art blogger for The Huffington Post, a frequent lecturer and an arts advocate as well as adjunct faculty at Williams College. With work in the White House’s permanent collection, her appointment to the National Council on the Arts, the advisory body to the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a long list of important private, public, national and international collections, her place as a significant American artist is secure.  A portion of the proceeds will benefit Habitat for Humanity.

 Prey’s much anticipated annual exhibit “Barbara Ernst Prey: East Meets West” is at Blue Water Fine Arts July-August 2013.