Slein Gallery fills every room with Edward Boccia retrospective

The walls of 4735 McPherson are completely covered.

Philip Slein Gallery is dedicating its entire floor plan to a single artist for the first time in its 23 years of operation. The exhibition, titled Edward E. Boccia: An American Modernist, opens on October 23 with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. and continues through December 19. Gallery owner Philip Slein called it a rare event in the venue's history, stating, "The only thing that could be bigger than this would be at an institution." The show marks a departure from the gallery's standard practice of restricting individual artist presentations to the front room alone.

The display features more than 30 paintings produced by a man who lived in St. Louis for six decades. Boccia, born in New Jersey in 1921, worked continuously until his death in 2012 at age 91. Slein noted the artist's relentless output, saying, "If he wasn't sleeping or eating, he was drawing." The collection spans from small seaside scenes to monumental multi-panel works, reflecting a career that included service in the World War II Ghost Army and studies at the Pratt Institute and Art Students League.

Curator Rosa Berland, an art historian and author based in New York, researched the exhibition for 14 years. She described Boccia's teaching style at Washington University, where he worked from 1951 until his 1986 retirement as professor emeritus, as rigorous yet open. Berland said Boccia encouraged students to find "their own kind of fire." The exhibition includes the nine-panel autobiographical polyptych "Eugene's Journey" and the 2004 triptych "David's Death," which meditates on the loss of his son.

The physical layout of the show mirrors the breadth of the artist's life. The front room contains the large-scale pieces for which Boccia is best known. A hallway displays mythic scenes of ocean journeys, while the final room features a salon wall that traces his stylistic evolution. This section includes a portrait from the 1950s and a work painted in 2012, shortly before his death. Influences from Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, and Max Beckmann are visible throughout the collection.

Hirmer will publish a companion book, Edward E. Boccia: Painter of Nightmares and Dreams, during the exhibition's run. The volume is the first major monograph on the artist and includes dozens of images, along with several fold-out plates designed to convey the scale of his multi-panel paintings. Berland credited Morton D. May as Boccia's greatest patron, noting that May's collection was gifted in part to the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Berland characterized Boccia as a polymath who studied philosophy, theology, psychoanalysis, and history. She said the work remains relevant because it requires active engagement from the viewer. "We don't slow down anymore," she said. The pamphlet prepared for the show includes a directive from Boccia: "Don't worry about what my art means. Just experience it."