Robert J. Anderson | works on paper

September 29 - October 15, 2023 . This exhibition has been extended through October 29th. After October 15th, please ring 978-837-0562 for an appointment.

Closing Reception : Saturday . October 28th . 4-6pm

Paintings by the Cape Ann Modernist Robert J. Anderson (1934-2016) have been widely exhibited, but these vivid oils on paper, along with his exuberant drawings, have not been shown until now. A passionate and adventurous artist all his life, Anderson created a thoroughly unique body of work. 

Anderson attended the Art Institute of Chicago, where in 1956 he was awarded the prestigious Logan Prize. After serving in the army, he worked by day as an exhibit preparator at the Field Museum of Natural History and painted at night. In the early 1960s, he exhibited his large figurative paintings at the Hyde Park Art Center, known for showing the Chicago Imagists, and had a one-man show at the Illinois Institute of Technology. After moving to New York in 1964, Bob continued to refine his intensely colorful figurative style.

In 1969, he moved to Cape Ann and worked as a carpenter on the renovation of Harold Bell's buildings in Gloucester's West End. He was known in those years mainly as a cabinetmaker and carpenter rather than a painter, but he never gave up on his artistic visions, often working in his studio late at night. In the 1980s and 90s he turned toward abstraction, often playing off the forms of Cape Ann’s rocky landscape as well as machine parts and hand tools. His sketchbooks, though, were filled with fantastical figure drawings in ink. He also created silkscreen designs on fabric and made sculptures from bent wood, carved concrete, cement-coated paper, and found objects.