Mead Art Museum Perspectives on Michael Mazur

In celebration of one of the most distinguished artists to have graduated from Amherst College, the Mead Art Museum has organized the exhibition Perspectives on Michael Mazur to honor his memory in what would have been his 60th reunion year. Michael Mazur (1935-2009), Class of 1957, was a talented painter and printmaker, as well as a dedicated teacher and arts advocate who held positions at esteemed institutions including the Rhode Island School of Design, Brandeis University, and Harvard University.

Throughout his 50-year career as an artist, he demonstrated an astounding stylistic range. Mazur worked in many media, especially printmaking, in which he mastered techniques including aquatint, lithography, and monotype. His artworks have been acquired by numerous museums including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Harvard Art Museums, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Yale University Art Gallery.

The Mead Art Museum holds an important collection of Mazur’s work, and this exhibition combines the Mead’s collection with generous alumni loans to illustrate the sweeping range of Mazur’s oeuvre. The show will include many works that have never been shown in public before, such as his senior thesis An Image of Salome, in addition to his vibrant pastels, large-scale gestural paintings, and well-known prints, such as Dante's Inferno. 

Michael Mazur’s work is represented by Ryan Lee Gallery in New York and by Barbara Krakow in Boston.