Michael Mazur: A Print Retrospective

June 9–September 10, 2000
Contact: Hilarie Faberman, Robert M. and Ruth L. Halperin Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, 650-725-3499; or Jill Osaka, Public Relations Manager, 650-725-4657.

STANFORD, CA MAY 2000—One of the most creative and admired artists working today in New England, Michael Mazur (b. 1935) is a recognized master of contemporary graphics, both of the editioned print and the monotype. This retrospective spans forty years of Mazur's activity in which he has embraced expressionism, realism, and abstraction.

Born and raised in New York City, Mazur studied art at Amherst and Yale before settling in Boston where he has lived for many years. His early prints, such as the Closed Ward and Locked Ward series, indicate his social commitment, when the artist was volunteering as art therapist at a mental institution. Mazur has also always been an acute reader of literature. This aspect of his work is evinced in several book projects, including his early woodcut thesis project, An Image of Salomé, and his recent monotype illustrations to poet laureate Robert Pinsky's translation of Dante's Inferno. In the 1980s, Mazur began a study of the natural world near Cape Cod where his family has a summer home. Not since Vincent Van Gogh has the sunflower been as glorious and sensitive as in Mazur's Wakeby images. More recently, Mazur's treatment of the natural world displays a peace and serenity usually ascribed to the work of Chinese or Japanese landscape artists.

There is a lively dialogue in Mazur's printed work between the drawn line and the painterly gesture. Given Mazur's attraction to both, it is no wonder that he is arguably the leading American practitioner of monotype, a process whereby the artist draws directly on the plate to produce a unique print with the spontaneity and immediacy of painting.

This retrospective was organized by the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Its presentation at Stanford is made possible by the Contemporary Collectors Circle of the Cantor Arts Center Membership.

Docent tours will be offered for this exhibition on Thursdays at 12:15 and Sundays at 2 pm. Reservations are not required for groups of 10 or fewer. In conjunction with the exhibition, Michael Mazur will present a lecture on Thursday, June 15, from 5 - 6 pm in the Cantor Arts Center Auditorium. The lecture will be immediately follwed by a book signing. Both events are free and open to the public and reservations are not required.