Ray Ciarrocchi’s drawings at the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center

Seeking the Darkness and the Light: Drawings of Italy by Ray Ciarrocchi
at the Joel And Lila Harnett Print Study Center

On view January 23 through April 26, 2015, in the
Harnett Print Study Center, is the exhibition
Seeking the Darkness and the Light: Drawings
of Italy by Ray Ciarrocchi.

Throughout his long career, Ray Ciarrocchi (American, born 1933) has maintained an abiding interest in the complexities of the landscape and its power as a visual metaphor.

The artist continues to focus on the landscape in his paintings and drawings. Dividing his time between New York and Italy, the artist found his inspiration for this series of charcoal drawings primarily in the provinces of Le Marche and the Abruzzo.

The series of drawings captures the mysterious and evocative nature of the region and its intermingling of Italy’s past and present, a setting Ciarrocchi describes as “heavy and dark and filled with a timeless uncertainty.” The richness of the layers of charcoal defines the darkness and the light of the landscape. In describing the drawings, the artist states, “Redon was partly an inspiration as was Italy with its surreal mixture of so many centuries which are part of daily life.

Charcoal itself helped define often what I was trying to find. The drawings are not literal versions of perceived reality but move in directions which the actual making of the drawings suggested.”
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UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND
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Contact:
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804-287-6659
Ray Chiarrocchi (American, born 1933), River God’s
Cascade (Villa Lante), 2010-2013, charcoal and white
pastel on MBM Ingres d’Arches paper, 25 x 32 inches, Joel
and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, University of Richmond
Museums, Gift of the artist, H2013.05.04 © Ray Ciarrocchi,
photograph by Taylor Dabney
2
Ray Ciarrocchi was born in Chicago, Illinois, and studied art at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, Washington University, and received his M.F.A. at Boston University in 1961. His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and included in selected collections such as The Brooklyn Museum, Greenwich Public Library, Connecticut, The United States Department of State, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the University of Richmond Museums.

Ciarrocchi has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Fulbright Grant, Florence, Italy, in 1963, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant in 1967, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowship Award in 2009-2010, and the Pollock-Krasner Grant in 2013.
Organized by the University of Richmond Museums and curated by Richard Waller, Executive Director, University Museums, the exhibition was made possible in part with support from the Louis S. Booth Arts Fund.

Programming
Sunday, February 22, 2015, 2 to 3:30 p.m.
Artist Talk and Tea Reception, Harnett Print Study Center
Modlin Center for the Arts
Ray Ciarrocchi, artist

Note: Images for press are available by contacting Heather Campbell, 804-287-6324 or hcampbel@richmond.edu
University of Richmond Museums comprises the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art, the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, and the Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature. Admission to all museums is free and open to the public.
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Museum hours (through 4/27): Sunday through Friday, 1 to 5 p.m. (Summer hours 4/28-5/15; Tuesday through Friday, 1 to 5p.m.). Closed Saturdays, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (1/19), Spring Break (3/7