Calendar :: Event
-
- Reception for Robert Hausey: A Life's Work Exhibit
- Description
- LSU School of Art presents: Robert Hausey: A Life’s Work. September 4-October 16, 2010. A celebratory reception will be held on Saturday, September 11, from 6-8pm. All events are free and open to the public. About Robert Hausey: Artist Robert M Hausey, beloved father, relative, friend and teacher affectionately called Bobby by one and all died Friday October 16, 2009 in his Baton Rouge home: he was fifty nine. ...Born November 25, 1949 in Baton Rouge he graduated from Central High School in 1967. Along with his close friends, artists Melody Guichet, Michael Crespo and James Rink, Hausey studied fine arts at Louisiana State University with such notable professors as Edward Pramuk and John Opie. He received his Masters of Fine Arts degree at the University of Pennsylvania studying painting with world renowned artists; Alex Katz, Neil Welliver and Rackstraw Downes. Hausey taught painting and drawing at the University of Texas at San Antonio, Sam Houston State University, was a visiting Professor at Ohio University, at Southern University, and from 1977 until his demise enjoyed a long and distinguished career as Professor of Art at Louisiana State University. Hausey is represented in many important national collections and is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including a residency at the American Academy in Rome. Though he achieved distinction in his profession it may be for his gentle creative soul that Robert Hausey is most remembered. In his regard for the feelings for others he was the very exemplar of the philosopher Philo of Alexandria’s (20BCE- 40CE) appeal to be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle. To a person his many students and friends remember him as a “gosh, shucks” kind of guy, yet underlying a demeanor nourished on Louisiana gumbo, country grits, humid summer nights and loving parents was a keen intelligence. From the start Hausey was a reader and dreamer who rode rodeo, sought love and discovered painting as a way of coming to consciousness. His paintings survive. In keeping with his temperament, Hausey’s first years as painter produced intimately scaled representations of social interactions often between humans and their animal companions. While these works often depicted our simpler even sillier side, they were always deeply human, expressions of genuine empathy with his subjects. In their form and motif his plein-air landscape paintings reflect his profound modesty. In that oeuvre Hausey depicted no grandeur or degradation. The art of this period never grandstands, lectures, or complains. Hausey was an artist who loved the world around him for what it was, even as his body was progressively ravaged by adolescent diabetes. Over many decades this terrible disease took its toll as well on his soul and was to be reflected in the art of his middle age. The second half of his painting life embraced the art of the past that he revered and the women he loved, wed, and desired. These paintings are part valentine, part memorial as one senses in the graying palette a fading grasp of vitality now ever mourned. This gentle man will remain in the hearts of all who met him including the author of this elegy who writes from Rome and is eternally grateful for Bobby Hausey’s friendship of forty years. His devoted son Neil Gopalan-Hausey survives Robert M. Hausey along with big brother Jim Hausey and all those he touched so profoundly. In sad remembrance. - Ron Cohen
- Venue
- LSU School of Art - Glassell Gallery
-
Shaw Center for the Arts
100 Lafayette Street
Baton Rouge, LA
-
- Date/Time
- Saturday, September 11, 2010
-
- For more information contact
- Event Contact: Malia Krolak (225-389-7180)
