An opening reception with the artist known for his contemporary realism landscapes, still life and figurative works will be held Saturday.
Artist Scott Prior at work in his new studio, a former garage at his Northampton home.A solo exhibition featuring 40 years of paintings, drawings and prints by Northampton artist Scott Prior opened at William Baczek Fine Arts on Wednesday.
An opening reception with the artist known for his contemporary realism landscapes, still life and figurative works will be held on Oct. 20 from 5 to 7 p.m., along with a signing of his first major book, “Scott Prior: A Monograph.”
“As appreciated as Scott’s paintings are and how avidly they are collected, there was never a full-pledged book to examine the scope and history of his art. William Baczek Fine Arts has published many catalogues for our artists but never a book of this size,” said William Baczek, who met Prior while directing the Hart Gallery at the Guild Art Centre.
“It was over two years in the making, and although Scott did not want the book to be a retrospective of all of his work, it nonetheless covers his development as an artist over 40 years.”
The coffee table book is the first comprehensive overview of paintings and drawings by Prior and contains 118 reproductions spanning his entire career. Also included are essays by Prior, Baczek, art author Richard Morange and Trevor Fairbrother, former curator of contemporary art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
“Because Scott lives locally, it is easy for people to sometimes forget the magnitude of his renown,” said Baczek. “Here in the Pioneer Valley we have musicians, writers, artists and scholars living in close proximity to us and are incredibly fortunate to have a wealth of incredible talent whose fame and reputation extend nationally and internationally.”
“Scott Prior: A Monograph” is $55 and available at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts bookstore, on Amazon.com and online at wbfinearts.com.
The associated exhibit, which runs from Oct. 17 to Nov. 25, includes the “Red Lion Diner”, a painting that a short time ago resurfaced after being lost for many years. Created in 1979 for AT&T, the painting vanished after the telephone conglomerate was broken up.
“I didn’t know it had disappeared until somebody here in town called and said that someone was looking to see who the artist was. They didn’t even know who it was painted by and they contacted a gallery here in town and they finally put it together that it was mine,” said Prior. “I don’t quite get it but for some reason I didn’t sign this painting. It was a major painting, too, and I think I might have spent four or five months on it.”
The painting of the local landmark 1930s Worcester Railroad red dining car on Pearl Street had been hidden away in a collector’s basement for the past fifteen years.
“This person bought it for themselves but we’re borrowing that for this exhibition. I just saw it the other day and it sort of blew me away what I was able to do 30 years ago,” said Prior. “It’s a highly detailed painting with a lot of work in it and I’m so happy that it’s going to be shown again in town right around the corner from the subject.”
Prior’s work has shown in one-person and group shows in the United States and abroad. It shines in private collections and can be seen in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and Boston-area DeCordova Museum, Danforth Museum, and Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University galleries.
Familiar subjects in his work are his wife, Nanny Vonnegut, and family, countless configurations of luminous still lifes and locations like California’s Muir Beach, his Northampton gardens and backyard, and the iconic Whately Diner Fillin’ Station.
One of the happiest times in Prior’s career was in 2001 when the DeCordova Museum, focused on modern and contemporary art by artists with connections to New England, held a mid-career retrospective and published an art catalogue of his work.
“That was a real validation of my career up to that point, which at that time was almost 30 years old. It was an occasion to gather in a lot of paintings from the previous years and put them all together in one show and it was an important event for me,” said Prior.
Prior has lived in the Pioneer Valley ever since graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1971.
“I used to build telescopes and wasn’t going to be an artist at all but Calculus made me change my mind. I was not good in math so I jumped out of that pretty quickly,” said Prior. “I had always done art and my mother signed me up for my first oil painting lessons when I was younger. My parents encouraged me but they didn’t push it.”
Prior also shared his thoughts on the belief many artists have that turns into an ultimate goal in their careers: You are not complete until a New York City gallery represents you.
“What I learned over the years is that it actually isn’t the be all and end all of a career. You can do quite well in many other galleries in different cities,” said Prior, who is represented by the Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York City and Alpha Gallery in Boston. “It’s not an overnight eureka moment. It’s a slow process over the years of multiple events that teach you things. You learn something from each of those experiences every time and it’s an accumulation of knowledge.”
Scott Prior’s opening reception and book signing for “Scott Prior: A Monograph” is free to the public. For more information, visit wbfinearts.com.