A Legacy of Excellence: Artistic Achievements of Older Pennsylvanians celebrates the art of six visual artists who have contributed to the creative life of our state for the past half-century. These six artists range in age from 77 to 89 years old and each has been working professionally in either Pittsburgh or Philadelphia for 49 to 65 years. Jerry Caplan (b.1922), Aaronel deRoy Gruber (b. 1918), Evelyn Keyser (b.1924), Michael Lasuchin (b. 1923), Charles LeClair (b. 1914), and Thaddeus Mosley (b. 1926) have provided us with a rich legacy of art created from individual approaches to subject, content, and media. ... in addition to bringing to light their individual work, this exhibition gives us the unique opportunity to understand and appreciate artistic longevity. Collectively considered, the careers of the six artists unfold patterns in how artistic vision is achieved, deepened and sustained.

After serving in the Navy, Thaddeus Mosley attended the University of Pittsburgh on the GI Bill, wanting to be a writer. ... In the early 1950s, when he was 26 years old, Mosley saw wood Scandinavian figures, the immediate impetus for teaching himself how to carve. He began to juggle his newfound fascination with art with part-time writing assignments at Pittsburgh’s African American newspaper The Courier, free-lance writing for several magazines, a job on the night shift with the Postal Service, and family responsibilities. When he read the book titled The Technique of Wood Sculpture by Chaim Gross, he was surprised to realize that he had discovered the principles of carving in wood on his very own.

With a painter's understanding of color, a sculptor's ability to construct, and a photographer's understanding of time and light, Aaronel deRoy Gruber creates paintings, sculptures and photographs that share these elements, revealing them in new ways. ... From the late 1950s to 1981, when she was elected Artist of the Year by the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Gruber had achieved a reputation as an established artist.

Working within America's modern wood carving tradition, Philadelphia native Evelyn Keyser has created over 300 figurative sculptures in more than 50 years. The sculptures, single figures or figures in pairs and clusters of three are charming but not sentimental and gentle but profound. They reveal a sophisticated classic beauty and quiet serenity.... The figures stand, walk, sit, recline, sleep, or engage in everyday activities. Through simplification, rhythmic distortion, and elongation, her personal experiences attain timelessness and universality.

A Russian émigré, whose youth was affected by Soviet rule and World War II, Michael Lasuchin began exhibiting and placing his work in collections over three decades ago, at the time he was completing a Master's degree at Philadelphia's Tyler School of Art at Temple University. In his prints in a variety of techniques and his watercolors, hard-edged geometrical shapes are set in soft atmospheric fields. Placed within the modern tradition of Geometric Abstraction that has incorporated a diversity of individual approaches, his work expresses a distinct universal poetry, or what Lasuchin refers to as an "encoded visual diary," that evolves out of the depth of his life experiences and communicates with those on spiritual journeys.

Charles LeClair rose to prominence as a Regionalist painter in Pittsburgh where he had moved in 1946 to serve as the Chairman of the Art Department and Chairman of the Humanities Program at Chatham College. … In 1960, LeClair moved to Philadelphia to develop and expand Temple University's Tyler School of Art where he was Dean for 14 years and taught until 1981… Summarizing his approach, LeClair states, "I enjoy opposition -- uniting two sides." LeClair's predilection for dualities has extended to his life as a whole. Because he has wanted to have both an "inner and outer life," he actively painted in his studio while chairing three art departments.

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A Legacy of Excellence show credits