Local painter’s 60-year career consumes entire gallery

A St. Louis gallery has filled every room with the work of one artist.

Philip Slein Gallery at 4735 McPherson in the Central West End is devoting its entire space to Edward E. Boccia. The exhibition, titled Edward E. Boccia: An American Modernist, opens October 23 with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. It runs through December 19. The gallery has operated for 23 years and has seldom used all three rooms for a single artist. Owner Philip Slein noted that the scale of this show is rare for the venue. He said only an institutional museum could host something larger.

Boccia was born in New Jersey in 1921. He spent six decades in St. Louis. He studied at the Pratt Institute and the Art Students League in New York. He also earned degrees from Columbia University after serving in the World War II Ghost Army. He taught at the Columbus Art School in Ohio before joining Washington University in St. Louis in 1951. He retired in 1986 as professor emeritus. He continued painting until his death in 2012 at age 91.

The show displays more than 30 paintings. The front room features large-scale works, including the nine-panel polyptych "Eugene's Journey." It also includes the 2004 triptych "David's Death," a meditation on the death of Boccia's son. A hallway displays mythic ocean scenes. The final room presents a salon wall tracing his evolution from a 1950s portrait to a work painted in 2012.

Art historian Rosa Berland wrote the companion book, Edward E. Boccia: Painter of Nightmares and Dreams. Hirmer will publish the book during the exhibition. Berland spent 14 years researching the monograph. It is the first major scholarly text on the artist. The book includes dozens of images and fold-out plates. It also contains essays and historical overviews.

Berland described Boccia as a polymath who studied philosophy, theology, psychoanalysis, and history. She said he wanted his work to remain open to interpretation. A pamphlet prepared for the show includes his instruction to viewers: "Don't worry about what my art means. Just experience it." Berland credited Morton D. May as Boccia's greatest patron. May's art collection was gifted in part to the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Berland said Boccia's work requires viewers to engage on multiple levels. She compared the experience to reading a poem or a philosophical text. She noted that modern audiences rarely slow down for such engagement.