Color Signals painting

Colby-Sawyer Hosts Liam O’Gallagher Exhibition

by Jaclyn Goddette '16
Feb. 20, 2019

The Department of Fine and Performing Arts presents “Liam O’Gallagher: This Was The Future,” an exhibition featuring the work of avant-garde sound artist, painter and teacher Liam O’Gallagher. The opening reception will be held Thursday, Feb. 28, from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Center for Art + Design’s William H. and Sonja Carlson ’56 Davidow Fine Art Gallery. Following the reception, the exhibition remains open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Saturday, May 11.

O’Gallagher, who studied under Hans Hoffmann in the 1950s, was a futurist fascinated with science fiction and the use of developing technologies. His San Francisco studio became an early gathering place for Beat writers and poets in the 1950s.

“I am very pleased to introduce the art and work of Liam O’Gallagher to Colby-Sawyer College and the greater New London community,” Sonja C. Davidow ’56 Endowed Chair of Fine and Performing Arts Professor Jon Keenan said. “He was an abstract expressionist painter, poet, film maker and sound artist, and this exhibition supports Colby-Sawyer’s commitment to interdisciplinary study. I hope the show will inspire new ways of seeing and understanding.”

After his death in 2007, O’Gallagher donated his work to the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts in Ojai, Calif. Professor Keenan has held workshops and exhibited his ceramics at the center, inspiring the institution to lend the exhibit to Colby-Sawyer.

Kevin Wallace, director of the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts, will give a presentation on O’Gallagher in the John and Heidi Niblack Black Box Theatre from 5 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 24. Wallace will also present on the life and work of Beatrice Wood in the Center for Art + Design’s ceramic studio from 12:30 to 2 p.m. on Thursday, April 25.

The exhibition was made possible through the generosity of the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts and friends of Colby-Sawyer College’s Center for Art + Design.

For more information, contact Gallery Director and Sonja C. Davidow ’56 Endowed Chair of Fine and Performing Arts Professor Jon Keenan at jkeenan@colby-sawyer.edu or 603.526.3667. Free and open to the public.