FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"Thinking, Seeing and Painting" to be discussed at Bates

LEWISTON, Maine -- "Thinking, Seeing and Painting," a panel discussion on landscape oil sketching with Maine artists Ann Lofquist, Joel Babb and James Linehan, will be held at Bates College Thursday, Sept. 24, at 7:30 p.m. in Room 104 of the Olin Arts Center. The public is invited to attend free of charge.

Led by Anthony Shostak, education coordinator for the Bates College Museum of Art, the discussion will focus on why these artists of regional and national acclaim are compelled to paint the landscape, how prolonged observation of nature has changed the way they see art, and how cultural influences, including art, have changed the way they see the landscape.

"Thinking, Seeing and Painting" is part of the outreach programs associated with "Notations of Color: Oil Sketching in Maine," a special two month exhibit of landscape painting on view in the Bates College Museum of Art through Oct. 30. The exhibit features small-scale oil sketches by more than 40 American landscape painters of the late 19th and 20th centuries, including George Bellows, Robert Henri, Neil Welliver, Joel Babb, Ann Lofquist and Lewiston native Marsden Hartley.

This exhibit was generously funded by Fleet Charitable Trust and friends of the Bates College Museum of Art.

The museum will remain open on the evening of Oct. 24 to allow those attending the lecture to visit the exhibit and see the panelists' paintings. Both the lecture and the exhibit are open to the public free of charge. The Bates College Museum of Art is open Tuesdays-Saturdays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Schools and other groups are welcome by appointment. For more information about the exhibit and programs, or to schedule a group tour, call 207-786-6158.