THIS YEAR MARYLAND INSTITUTE COLLEGE OF ART (MICA) WILL HOST A SERIES OF EVENTS TO MARK THE LEROY E. HOFFBERGER SCHOOL OF PAINTING 50TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION. Image credit:

RECEPTION: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 5 PM

The Curated Invitational 50th LeRoy E. Hoffberger Alumni Exhibition and Opening Reception will be hosted by the MICA Board of Trustees. The Opening Reception will feature a talk by the exhibition’s curator Caitlin Tucker-Melvin ‘14 (Curatorial Practice MFA). The Possibility of Transformation is an exhibition of paintings curated in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting. Grace Hartigan was the first director, and Joan Waltemath now directs the program. The LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting is one of the world's most renowned graduate painting programs. Curated with respect to the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School's impressive legacy, this exhibition features twelve of Grace Hartigan's paintings alongside the artworks of alumni artists. Using Hartigan's work as a visual catalyst, artists were selected from the 360 alumni of the program to date. From the inaugural class to its most recent graduates, alumni are represented from the entire fifty-year history of the program. Purposefully non-linear, this exhibition conceives of the alumni community as an interconnected and intergenerational web of influence, expanding outward from the shared formative experience of graduate school. The LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting represents the confluence of passion shown by its past and current directors, the family that dedicatedly supports the growth of the program, and the students who each year contribute their energy to its ever growing community of artists. Artists include: Tommy Dahlberg, ‘15, Alana Bergstrom, ‘14, Boram Lee, ‘14, Amita Bhatt, ‘09, Katherine Mann, ‘09, Amy Sherald, ‘04, Nandini Chirimar, ‘93, Trace Miller, ‘86, Rex Stevens, ‘82, Bill Schmidt, ‘81, Christine Neill, ‘81, Vivian Wolovitz, ‘78, Mary Ann Krutsick, ‘78, Susan Abbott, ‘74, William Dutterer, ‘67, Fay Chandler, ‘67, and Dan Dudrow, ‘67.

Image credit: Alana Bergstrom (MICA LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting MFA Class of 2014), Understand, acrylic on canvas, 46 x 50 inches, 2014.