Bob Thompson

“So let us all be citizens” is a small but enlightening retrospective of painter Bob Thompson’s meteoric career, which ended prematurely on May 30, 1966—roughly a month before the artist’s twenty-ninth birthday. Deftly curated by 52 Walker’s Ebony L. Haynes, the show presents fourteen oil paintings, spanning 1960 to 1965, all of which have been loaned from private collections and museums. The works are strongly influenced by European masters: Fragonard, Gauguin, Poussin, Titian, as we see in a number of canvases, including The Swing, 1965, or Triumph of Bacchus, 1964. Such inspirations exude an

picks March 29, 2023

Philip Van Aver

Showcasing almost fifty paintings and drawings created over forty-three years—rendered in ink, watercolor, and gouache—this retrospective of Philip Van Aver’s art presents works that act as subtle yet powerful poetic talismans. Serene landscapes, dreamlike tableaux, and refined still lifes whisper visions of imaginary worlds: Van Aver’s own Arcadia.

The exhibition reveals a striking consistency: The most recent work on view, made in 2021, is similar in style and subject matter to pieces made during the late 1970s. Van Aver’s delicate images are usually the size of a handkerchief or a postcard—the