A special exhibition of paintings and drawings spanning six decades of work by New York painter John Heliker opened Thursday and will run through Nov. 19 at Brenau University's Sellars Gallery in Gainesville.
Although Heliker is best known for figurative works, the curated exhibition titled “John Heliker: The Order of Things” also features a range of oil-based landscapes as well as abstract mixed-media pieces.
“This show is really impressive in the breadth of the work it represents,” said Nichole Rawlings, the director of the gallery, in a press release. “Heliker was a contemporary of a lot of the artists that we have featured in previous exhibits.”
In addition to the exhibition, which is free and open to the public during regular gallery hours, Brenau Galleries will host a lecture featuring Heliker-LaHotan Foundation Executive Director Patricia Bailey at a free public reception at 6 p.m. Sept. 17.
Rawlings said that the curated exhibition is particularly significant for the university because of its permanent collection of art, some of which represents work by Heliker contemporaries.
Heliker, who died in 2000 at age 91, served as a professor at Columbia University for 27 years. But he had been a fixture in the New York art world as early as the 1930s. His work has been featured at New York's Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum.
For more information, log onto galleries.brenau.edu. To book group tours, contact Allison Murphy Lauricella at amurphy2@brenau.edu or 770- 534-6263.
Guided tours will be offered to adult groups of five or more people at 11 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tours must be reserved at least two weeks in advance.
