The show is an open invitation to interpret – through art – the life and works of a former city resident who, also, happens to be America’s only Nobel Prize winning playwright.
Titled simply Eugene O’Neill: Artists Interpret His Life and Work, the show represents a unique collaboration between community artists, O’Neill enthusiasts, Hygienic Art, Connecticut College, and the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford.
Specifically, the show has been timed to coincide with two significant O’Neill-related events occurring this spring: the 50th Anniversary of the Eugene O’Neill Theater in Waterford, and the gathering here in June of the Ninth International Conference of the Eugene O’Neill Society, an international group of O’Neill scholars. The show will open on Saturday, May 31 and run through June 28. Works of art will be accepted at the gallery on May 22, 23 and 24. There will be a $10 entry fee per artist and a limit of three works per artist.
“The impact of this show could extend well beyond our region,” says A. Vincent Scarano, President of Hygienic Art. “O’Neill is our native son, but he’s also America’s only Nobel Prize-winning playwright and a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner. This is one of the first times we’ve celebrated O’Neill through the full range of visual arts. It should be a powerful cross-pollination of art, community, and literary history.”