Jon Imber is a young Boston painter who began to attract attention in the late ’70s. Graduate study with Philip Guston exerted a lingering influence; Imber’s emotionally charged early work, which cast his family and friends in mythological dramas, was characterized by anatomical and spatial distortion. Because of this, he was mistakenly classed under the catchall rubric of neo-Expressionism, a term whose inappropriateness became increasingly clear as Imber shed exaggeration in favor of imagistic veracity through a series of huge, empathetic portraits.

This show included large-scale oil paintings