St. Louis Painter's Career Fills Every Room at Slein Gallery

The Philip Slein Gallery in St. Louis's Central West End has opened a career retrospective for painter Edward E. Boccia. The exhibition, titled Edward E. Boccia: An American Modernist, runs through December 19. It opens with a reception on October 23 from 5 to 8 p.m. at 4735 McPherson.

The gallery typically reserves only its front room for individual artists. For this show, works from Boccia's six decades in St. Louis fill all three spaces. Gallery owner Philip Slein described the scale as exceptional. "This is a very significant show," Slein said. "The only thing that could be bigger than this would be at an institution."

Boccia was born in New Jersey in 1921 to Italian parents. He served in the World War II Ghost Army before studying at the Pratt Institute and the Art Students League in New York. He later earned degrees from Columbia University. While teaching at the Columbus Art School in Ohio, he introduced Bauhaus sensibilities to his students.

He joined Washington University in St. Louis in 1951. He taught there for more than 30 years and retired in 1986 as professor emeritus. New York-based art historian Rosa Berland noted that Boccia's teaching style was rigorous but allowed students to find "their own kind of fire."

The exhibition features more than 30 paintings from his extensive output. Boccia produced thousands of works, ranging from small seaside scenes to monumental multi-panel pieces. He continued painting until his death in 2012 at age 91. "If he wasn't sleeping or eating, he was drawing," Slein said.

The front room displays large-scale works, including the nine-panel polyptych "Eugene's Journey" and the 2004 triptych "David's Death." The latter is one of several pieces meditating on the death of his son. A hallway exhibits mythic ocean scenes featuring figures that appear to emit inner light. The final room uses a salon wall layout to trace his career, moving from a 1950s portrait to a painting made shortly before his death in 2012.

Influences from Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Renaissance masters, and Max Beckmann appear throughout the collection. A companion book, Edward E. Boccia: Painter of Nightmares and Dreams, will be published by Hirmer during the exhibition. The monograph is the first major scholarly text on the artist and includes fold-out plates of his multi-panel works.

Berland wrote the book after 14 years of research. She describes Boccia as a polymath who studied philosophy, theology, psychoanalysis, and history. She credited Morton D. May as Boccia's greatest patron, noting that May's collection was partially gifted to the Saint Louis Art Museum. "This is really a story of a kid from New York who found success in St. Louis," Berland said.

A pamphlet prepared for the show advises viewers not to worry about specific meanings but to simply experience the art. Berland said the work matters now because it demands engagement on several levels. "We don't slow down anymore," she said, comparing the experience to reading a poem or a philosophical text.