St. Louis Gallery Devotes All Rooms to Edward Boccia Career

Philip Slein Gallery is breaking from its 23-year pattern by filling every room with work by a single artist. The exhibition, titled Edward E. Boccia: An American Modernist, occupies the entire space at 4735 McPherson in the Central West End. It opens on October 23 with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. and runs through December 19.

Gallery owner Philip Slein noted that the space has typically reserved only its front room for individual shows. For Boccia, who lived in St. Louis for 60 years, the walls hold pieces from across his career. Slein described the show as the largest the gallery has presented, stating that only a museum could host something bigger.

Born in New Jersey in 1921 to Italian parents, Boccia served in the World War II Ghost Army. He studied at the Pratt Institute and Art Students League in New York, then earned degrees from Columbia University. He taught at the Columbus Art School in Ohio before joining Washington University in St. Louis in 1951. He retired as professor emeritus in 1986 after more than 30 years on faculty.

The exhibition features more than 30 paintings. The front room displays large-scale pieces, including the nine-panel polyptych Eugene's Journey and the 2004 triptych David's Death. A hallway shows mythic ocean scenes and figures with inner light. The final room contains a salon wall that traces his style from a 1950s portrait to a work painted in 2012, shortly before his death at age 91.

Art historian Rosa Berland wrote the first major monograph on Boccia, a work that took 14 years to research. The companion book, Edward E. Boccia: Painter of Nightmares and Dreams, publishes during the show run. It includes fold-out plates and scholarly essays. Berland, who is based in New York, described Boccia as a rigorous teacher who encouraged students to find their own fire.

Slein said Boccia worked constantly, adding that if the painter was not sleeping or eating, he was drawing. Berland identified Morton D. May as Boccia's greatest patron. May's collection was partially gifted to the Saint Louis Art Museum. Berland summarized the career as a story of a New York native who found success in St. Louis.

The pamphlet for the show, prepared by Berland and Slein, quotes Boccia: "Don't worry about what my art means. Just experience it." Berland said the work demands engagement on multiple levels, comparing the viewing experience to reading a poem or philosophical text.