Bill Curran – “A View for All Seasons”

November 13, 2005.

“Down all the side streets, people have wonderful hidden gardens,” artist Bill Curran told a reporter from The Hudson Dispatch in 1986. Today, the painter says, “Seeing other backyards helped me see my own.” Curran loves nature and looking out the window, so, being an artist, he married the two and began a series of paintings of his own backyard.

Outside his window, shapes and colors interact to create beautiful compositions that call out to be painted. Sometimes, Curran records the scene in one sitting. On other occasions, he may return to a subject over a series of sessions.

Please join us Sunday, November 13, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., for an artist’s reception and opening of A View for All Seasons: Paintings by Bill Curran, in the Upper Gallery at the Museum, 1301 Hudson Street, through December 23. Over a dozen oil and acrylic paintings of backyard views observed through the seasons, and through the years, are on display.

The paintings record fleeting changes in light and weather conditions, and lasting changes over time. This year, the red geraniums that had always accentuated the green grass of a neighbor’s yard were gone, making the scene far less interesting to the painter’s eye. Even so, the view from his window continues to inspire the artist in fresh and unexpected ways.

Bill Curran’s paintings have been exhibited throughout the metropolitan area. He has studied at The National Academy of Design and The Art Students League. Among the painters Curran counts as influences are Claude Monet, and contemporary artists Fairfield Porter, Jane Freilicher, and Wolf Kahn.