Richard Lee, who died in 2012, took the centuries-old art of painting on glass to new and fantastical heights, creating a world of his own filled with colorful, fanciful creatures. Winged fish, a canine angel and flower-headed people are just a few of the vivid figures who fly, soar and stride through the works on display at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in Life in Reverse: The Remarkable World of Richard Lee, through July 25.
The first major show of Mr. Lee’s work since a 2013 retrospective at Featherstone following his death the previous year at 79, Life in Reverse was curated by his wife and son, Claudia Canerdy and Hudson Lee, with Island gallerist Tanya Augoustinos of A Gallery and Pathways Arts.
Curator’s tours for the show have been selling out, as longtime Islanders rediscover the artist’s work and new audiences experience it for the first time. On July 3 at 9 p.m., the museum and Pathways will present an outdoor screening of moving projections, animated from Mr. Lee’s work by Island artist Jon Baer.
A mid-1970s washashore, Mr. Lee found a community on the Vineyard that embraced his vibrant, unfettered style. Some may have taken longer than others to appreciate his work, which Mr. Lee himself acknowledged as “grotesque.”
The show comprises two galleries filled with artworks, furniture and artifacts from Mr. Lee’s studio and home. There’s so much on display, Ms. Augoustinos told the Gazette, that the curators opted not to use identifying labels in the show.
“I think it would take away from just being immersed in the work,” she said.
An artist who — at least once — told an interviewer he was 3,000 years old and told friends he was Hieronymus Bosch’s grandson, Mr. Lee swam in the cultural waters of many millennia while constructing new myths all his own.
“He created his own visual lexicon of imagery and symbols,” Ms. Augoustinos said. “Nothing was happenstance in his work. It wasn’t random.”
It’s not hard to see the link to Bosch in some of Mr. Lee’s creations, like the human torso with a can opener for legs and, at the other end, a snake’s tongue darting from the head of a fish. But where Bosch’s 15th-century grotesques bespoke the horrors of hell, Mr. Lee’s are generally here for a good time. Music and dancing — he was a dancer before launching his art career — are frequent themes in the wall pieces and glass-front cabinets he transformed into glowing campuses for all kinds of creatures, many caught apparently mid-act.
The exhibition also includes masks and botanical paintings, as well as furniture and a recreation of Mr. Lee’s work desk, complete with the unfinished reverse painting he was working on when he died in 2012.
Mr. Baer’s projections, originally screened June 11, transform the potential of Mr. Lee’s lively characters, creating a kinetic motion that plays directly on the museum exterior. The July 3 screening will have more animations, Ms. Augoustinos said, including some from paintings by Mr. Lee that are no longer available. It will also feature music, for the first 75 people to arrive who are interested in wearing a headphone transmitting a special soundtrack for the event, as the town restricts the number of amplified-music events at the museum. The headphones will be provided by Pathways, which uses them for its “silent disco” dance parties at the Tashmoo Spring Building. The devices function only with their associated transmitters, Ms. Augoustinos said.
Richard Lee fans can also shop at the museum gift store for Bob Gothard’s coffee-table book of his art, as well as posters, signed by Mr. Lee, from multiple years of the Crossover Ball.
The Martha’s Vineyard Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday at 10 a.m., until 8 p.m. on Tuesday and until 5 p.m. on Wednesday through Sunday.
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