Stephen Pace 2011

Stephen Pace: A Life in Art, 1918-2010
May 23 - September 2, 2011

The show features the artwork of Stephen S. Pace, an internationally-known painter who died in fall 2010 at the age of 91. Susan Sauls, registrar of the USI Art Collection, curated the exhibit, selecting over 80 paintings, drawings, and prints from a bequest to the collection by Pace and his wife Palmina. The artworks are arranged in chronological groupings, from the 1930s to 2010.

Stephen Pace's formative years were spent on a farm outside of New Harmony, Indiana, and his first art lessons were taken at the Evansville Museum. Pace went on to initial prominence in New York as an Abstract Expressionist painter in the 1950s, and later earned acclaim for his figurative abstraction in the 1960s and beyond. His paintings and drawings are in the collections of major U.S. museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

In 1972, the Paces purchased a summer home in the small fishing village of Stonington, Maine. For over 50 years, the Paces lived and worked in Maine and New York. In 2008, they returned to southern Indiana, first residing in Evansville and then in New Harmony, where Stephen Pace continued to paint until his death on September 23, 2010.

A closing celebration featuring reflections upon Pace, his life, and his art will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, August 28, 2011, at the art center. There will be refreshments and a short program. The exhibition is on display through Friday, September 2.