Bruce Adams (1952-2021)

This work is part of Bruce Adams’ series titled “Paintings of Pictures of People with Paintings” that was exhibited at the Carnegie Art Center in North Tonawanda in 2001. Within a clinically white background, he presents a skewed perspective of a young woman looking at Vincent van Gogh’s The Old Mill (1888) at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. In the exhibition brochure, Elizabeth Licata wrote: “…recently Adams has focused on how we do—or don’t—view art objects. Correctly observing that most people view the actual through the reproduction, Adams portrays various art viewers photographed in the act of viewing or photographing artworks.” This distancing is made additionally ironic by the artist’s creating another layer of distance from the artwork, which itself might be an image of the “real.” This philosophical stance is an on-going concern for Adams.