En Plein Air Around the World

Summit ArtSpace, 140 E. Market St., Akron | Now through August 1, 2009

En plein air is a French term that translates to mean “in the open air” and refers to the act of painting out-of-doors. Painting en plein air has been a practice of landscape painters for close to five hundred years. Currently in the United States, plein air painting has been enjoying a popularity that had been missing from the art scene for quite some time.

Plein Air Around the World is an exhibition of original paintings by eight prominent Ohio artists and encompasses a wide variety of scenery from Ohio, the United States, as well as enchanting depictions from many countries worldwide. The show is curated by Dino Massaroni, an award-winning artist, past president of the Akron Society of Artists and charter member of the Ohio Plein Air Society. Massaroni was able to enlist the participation of fellow plein air painters from Summit, Portage and Medina counties, all who are members of Akron Society of Artists: Judith B. Carducci, Lawrence Churski, Judy Gaiser, Ann Ferguson Kah, Carolyn E. Lewis, Jack Liberman, and Patricia Rohrbacher. These artists are well-rounded: their work spans the breadth from portraiture to still life.

Along with Massaroni, Carducci and Lewis are professional portrait painters, and together their clientele list reads like a "Who’s Who" of prominent regional and national portrait subjects. They teach plein air workshops throughout Italy, France and Greece, and at Cuyahoga Valley Art Center. Churski is a well-known illustrator turned fine artist and is owner of The Lawrence Churski Gallery in Bath, Ohio and Artists Incorporated, an advertising design firm housed in the old Mill at Yellow Creek. Liberman, a retired business owner, has always found time to paint en plein air, and now teaches landscape painting classes and workshops at the Cuyahoga Valley Art Center. Gaiser, a retired art teacher, Kah and Rohrbacher are artists who paint well, simply for the joy of painting.

Click on any painting below to discover the artist. Better yet, come to the show and read the stories behind each painting while absorbing the wonder of the original.