Joyce Reopel (1933–2019) was an American painter, draughtswoman and sculptor who worked in pencil,

aquatint Aquatint is an intaglio (printmaking), intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching that produces areas of tone rather than lines. For this reason it has mostly been used in conjunction with etching, to give both lines and shaded tone. ...

, silver- and goldpoint, and an array of old master media. A Boris Mirski Gallery veteran, from 1959–1966, she was known for her refined skills and virtuosity. She was also one of very few women in the early group of Boston artists that included fellow artist and husband Mel Zabarsky, Hyman Bloom,

Barbara Swan Barbara Swan (1922–2003), also known by her married name, Barbara Swan Fink, was an American painter, illustrator, and lithographer. Her early work is associated with the Boston Expressionist school; later she became known for her still-lif ...

Jack Levine Jack Levine (January 3, 1915November 8, 2010) was an American Social Realist painter and printmaker best known for his satires on modern life, political corruption, and biblical narratives. Levine is considered one of the key artists of the Bos ...

, Marianna Pineda,

Harold Tovish Harold Tovish (July 31, 1921 – January 4, 2008) was an American sculptor who worked in bronze, wood, and synthetic media. He was famous for exacting standards, and even refused to complete many of the sculptures he began. Tovish focused o ...

and others who helped overcome Boston's conservative distaste for the avant-garde, occasionally female, and often Jewish artists later classified as Boston expressionists. Unique to New England,

Boston Expressionism Boston Expressionism is an arts movement marked by emotional directness, dark humor, social and spiritual themes, and a tendency toward figuration strong enough that Boston Figurative Expressionism is sometimes used as an alternate term to distingu ...

has had lasting national and local influence, and is now in its third generation.

Work

Known for her finely wrought detail and lush sensuality, ''New York'' Magazine called Reopel "an artisan as well as an artist," while praising her renderings of the figure because " e artist seems consistently to search out that which lies behind the physical trait. And having discovered it, she presents it in whispers, with unusual understatement and economy." The results range from expressive realism to subtle surrealism and outright grotesquerie. A student of sculptor

Leonard Baskin Leonard Baskin (August 15, 1922 – June 3, 2000) was an American sculptor, draughtsman and graphic artist, as well as founder of the Gehenna Press (1942–2000). One of America's first fine arts presses, it went on to become "one of the most imp ...

at the Worcester Art Museum School, then known as the “Mini-Met,” Reopel shared his fascination with the human form, and his interest in fine arts printing, woodcut, sculpture, etching and typography. Her earliest work can be seen in a 1953 version of T.S. Eliot's ''

The Hollow Men "The Hollow Men" (1925) is a poem by the modernist writer T. S. Eliot. Like much of his work, its themes are overlapping and fragmentary, concerned with post–World War I Europe under the Treaty of Versailles (which Eliot despised: compare " ...

,'' which she illustrated and helped typeset as an art student. In 1958, she created pen-and-ink cover illustrations for Boston's Audience: A Quarterly Review of Literature and the Arts in an issue featuring several of

Anne Sexton Anne Sexton (born Anne Gray Harvey; November 9, 1928 – October 4, 1974) was an American poet known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for her book '' Live or Die''. Her poetry details ...

's poems and interior illustration by Arthur Polonsky. She also designed many of the catalogues for her 1960s and 1970s

, silver- and goldpoint exhibitions at Boston's Boris Mirski Gallery and, in New York, the Corber Gallery and founder Bella Fishco's Forum Gallery. As Reopel's work matured, its subtly emotive, even melancholy, rendering of its subjects, were often lyrical in the vein of fellow Boston Expressionist Arthur Polonsky. Her distinctive palette evolved from glints of silver, gold and lead-gray in the early years to subtle tones of grayed blue and green when she turned to oil painting. Her old-master technical skill, meanwhile, reflected an interest in history that was also sometimes reflected in her depictions of historical themes or classical icons.

Education, Awards & Honors

A graduate of the Worcester Art Museum School, Reopel also spent two years studying at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Arts at Oxford University. Earning recognition and laudits for her work, Reopel was the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at the

Bunting Institute The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University—also known as the Harvard Radcliffe Institute—is a part of Harvard University that fosters interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, a ...

(since renamed the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard) and a grant as a Radcliffe Scholar for Independent Study; a fellowship t
Yale Norfolk School of Art
a grant then under Princeton's aegis at th

(NIAL); a

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

grant in sculpture and drawing; the American Academy of Arts & Letters ''Arts & Letters'' Award; and a research grant from Wheaton College.

Exhibitions

* Boris Mirski Gallery, Boston *

Boston Arts Festival The contemporary Boston Arts Festival is an annual event showcasing Boston's visual and performing arts community and promoting Boston's Open Studios program. The weekend-long Festival at Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park features a wide variet ...

, MA * Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid * Cober Gallery, NYC *

Currier Museum of Art The Currier Museum of Art is an art museum in Manchester, New Hampshire, in the United States. It features European and American paintings, decorative arts, photographs and sculpture. The permanent collection includes works by Picasso, Matisse, Mo ...

, Manchester, NH *

DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is a 30-acre sculpture park and contemporary art museum on the shore of Flint's Pond in Lincoln, Massachusetts, 20 miles northwest of Boston. It was established in 1950. It is the largest park of its kind ...

, Lincoln, MA *Federal Reserve Bank, Boston * Forum Gallery, NYC *Galerie Internationale, NYC *Museum of Art, Durham, NH * National Institute of Arts & Letters (NIAL) *New Bedford Art Museum, MA *

New York State Council on the Arts The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) is an arts council serving the U.S. state of New York. It was established in 1960 through a bill introduced in the New York State Legislature by New York State Senator MacNeil Mitchell (1905–1996 ...

, NY *Rew Dex Gallery, Kyoto *Salones Berkowitsch, Madrid *Tragos Gallery, NYC *

Victoria & Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, London

Collections

Addison Gallery of American Art The Addison Gallery of American Art is an academic museum dedicated to collecting American art, organized as a department of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. History Directors of the gallery include Bartlett H. Hayes, Jr. (1940– ...

, Andover, MA * Canton Museum of Art, Canton, OH *Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH * Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA *

Weisman Art Museum The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum is an art museum at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 1934 as University Gallery, the museum was originally housed in an upper floor of the university's Northrop Auditorium. In 19 ...

, Minneapolis, MN * Museum of Art, Durham, NH *

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

, Columbus *

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appa ...

(PAFA) *

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

(RISD) Museum, Providence *Sloan Art Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill * Worcester Public Library, Worcester Biography Files *

University of Massachusetts The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medical ...

, Amherst *

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

, Fine Arts Gallery Collection, Nashville, TN

Publications/Notable Reproductions

*''The Hollow Men'', WAM Press, Reopel and Sorenson, 1953 *''Joyce Reopel: Drawings in silverpoint and goldpoint, November 9th through December 4th,'' 1965 *''Joyce Reopel: Drawings in silverpoint, goldpoint, and pencil: January 22nd through February 15th,'' 1969 *''The Liberal Context,'' Issues 1–9, 1-17. Edited by Cudhea, David W., with Anne Chiarenza, Gobin Stair, Orloff Miller. Published by College Centers Committee of American Unitarian Association in cooperation with Liberal Religious Youth (LRY) Inc. Art by Joyce Reopel and others, 1961-1966

Personal life

Born in Worcester, MA in 1933, and raised in nearby Auburn, Reopel was the only child of homemaker Ada (née Anderson) and musician Ernest Reopel. A first cousin to scientist Paul Englund on her mother's side, she was also a distant cousin to French Canadian artist

Jean-Paul Riopelle Jean-Paul Riopelle, (October 7, 1923 – March 12, 2002) was a Canadian painter and sculptor from Quebec. He had one of the longest and most important international careers of the sixteen signatories of the ''Refus Global'', the 1948 manif ...

on her father's. In 1955, Reopel married painter and fellow Worcester Art Museum School graduate Mel Zabarsky. Her other professional endeavors included time spent teaching at the Swain School College of Design, the University of New Hampshire and elsewhere. In 1976, her life-long interest in politics helped win her a two-year term in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. A respect for history and passion for architecture led to her interest in preservation, the documented history of her own house, and the founding of the Portsmouth Historic District Commission.

Bibliography

*Butler, Cornelia H., ''et al.'' ''WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution.'' United Kingdom: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2007. ISBN 978-0914357995, 0914357999 *Falk, Peter Hastings (ed). ''Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975: 400 years of artists in America''. (3 Volumes.) Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1999. ISBN 978-0932087577''Painting in Boston: 1950-2000.'' Lafo, Rachel R. University of Massachusetts Press, 2002; *Nemser, Cindy, ''et al.'' ''Feminist Art Journal'', vol. 3, no. 1, 1974. ''JSTOR'', jstor.org/stable/10.2307/community.28036286. Accessed 30 Aug. 2021. *Schwartz, Barry. ''The New Humanism: Art in a Time of Change''. Praeger Publishers, 1974; *Walkey, Frederick P. ''New England Women''. Decordova Museum, 1975; *''Audience: The Quarterly Review of Literature & the Arts,'' Vol. 5, Issue 3. Audience Press, 1958; *''Collected Visions: Women Artists at the Bunting Institute,'' 1961-1986, Cambridge, Mass.: Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, 1986; *''Humanism in New England Art''. De Cordova Museum Publisher, Lincoln, MA, 1970;

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reopel, Joyce 1933 births American people of French-Canadian descent American people of Swedish descent 2019 deaths 21st-century American sculptors 21st-century American painters 21st-century American women artists American women painters Artists from Worcester, Massachusetts Painters from Massachusetts American women sculptors Sculptors from Massachusetts American draughtsmen Boston expressionism American Expressionist painters Surrealist artists Mythological painters People associated with the Worcester Art Museum Alumni of the Ruskin School of Art Women state legislators in New Hampshire