Santa Sabina from Parco Savelli, Rome, 2004
signed and titled verso,
oil on board, 15 x 24 inches
Provenance:
private collection, Maine
acquired directly from the artist
Although Joel Babb’s studies as an undergraduate at Princeton University allowed him to work with abstract art instructors, he was an Art History major. He spent a subsequent year in Munich and in Rome, returning to the States with a strong interest in much more classical art work. Abstraction was the major focus at the Museum School at that time, but Joel’s hours of working at the MFA as a guard at night provided him with the perfect instruction. Intense study and copying of old masters, together with a determination to, as he says, “really learn to draw” allowed him to develop his classical realism, with devotion to minute details. These are evident in his works created in Boston of street views and buildings, as well as the deep woods landscapes surrounding his Maine home in the last twenty years. A follower of John Ruskin, his search for the “real” in the details is evident in all of his paintings. Yearly stays in Rome allowed him to apply these techniques to architecture in neighborhoods there. He has had numerous solo exhibitions, including several at Vose Galleries in Boston and Greenhut Gallery in Portland, Maine. A major retrospective of his work was shown at the Bates College Museum of Art in 2010, with an accompanying catalogue. A major painting by the artist, Copley Plunge, was acquired last year by the the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.