Adolf Dehn: Midcentury Manhattan will be on view at the Fairfield University Art Museum from January 27 – April 7, 2017; an Opening Reception will take place on Thursday, January 26, from 6-7:30 pm in the Fairfield University Art Museum, Bellarmine Hall. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

This exhibition will explore the Manhattan subjects of National Academician Adolf Dehn (1895-1968). Visiting, and then living in New York City, Dehn captured the essence of the city in his paintings, prints and drawings of the landscapes of Central Park, and of the city’s burlesque and night club scenes. While best known as a lithographer and one of the founding members of the American Artists Group, Dehn played a significant role in America’s contemporary realist movement starting in the 1930s. He was included in every Whitney Museum of American Art “Annual” and “Biennial” invitational exhibition from the first biennial 1932 into the early 1960’s, and still holds the record for being in more of these prestigious shows than any other artist. His work is in the permanent collections of more than eighty museums.

Devoted to the artist’s images of Manhattan from the 1920s through 1960, this exhibition features casein paintings (a fast-drying, water-soluble medium made from milk casein or milk protein), watercolors, and pastel, ink and pencil drawings, as well as a select group of lithographs. It will coincide with the publication of Adolf Dehn: Midcentury Manhattan, by Fairfield University art history professor, Philip Eliasoph (The Artist Book Foundation, 2017).

Dr. Eliasoph, the pre-eminent scholar on Dehn’s Manhattan-themed imagery, will present a gallery talk during the run of the exhibition.