Press Release

Reception for the Artist: Friday, June 27, 2008, 5 to 7pm

Gebert Contemporary welcomes the return of Marcia Myers’ sumptuous and luscious fresco paintings on linen. Well-respected in the international art world for her scholarly devotion to Italian art history, Myers has long had the attention of sophisticated collectors for her gifted execution of fresco on linen. Her fascination with fresco is rooted in the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, where Myers first ventured in 1969. Subsequent studies of the Renaissance melded with admiration for the Abstract Expressionists to create passionate works of haunting sensuousness. This exhibition will consist of approximately 15 new paintings, including examples from her popular Frammento, Tempio, and Scavi series.

We will also be celebrating Gebert Contemporary’s publication of Myers’ new book Marcia Myers: Photographs / Pompeii and the Cities of Vesuvius. Myers’ first visited the Roman villas around Pompeii and Herculaneum in 1969 on her junior year abroad from Hood College. She has been photographing the villas ever since. These ancient Roman fresco paintings certainly inform Myers’ work but she never imitates them. Rather, in these photographs she is truly the painter behind the camera.

The exhibition will be a combination of new fresco paintings and photographs from the book.