Currier museum prepares 1960s, 1970s photorealism exhibition

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - New Hampshire's Currier Museum of Art is preparing to open an exhibition on life in the 1960s and 1970s.

Titled "Still Life: 1970s Photorealism," the display will consist of paintings and sculptures made from photographs of that era. Featured artists include Richard Estes, Duane Hanson, Tom Blackwell and Audrey Flack.

The exhibition opened Saturday, Jan. 24, and runs through May 3.

The new exhibition promises a trip back in time to an era of muscle cars, diners, endless highways and cityscapes.

"People are immediately drawn to these works of art," said museum curator Kurt Sundstrom. "Most baby boomers will view this show nostalgically but everyone will appreciate each artist's precision in creating these seemingly real scenes."

It is the museum's first exhibition since the M.C. Escher exhibition titled "Reality and Illusion" that closed Jan. 5. That was the most popular attraction at the Manchester museum in 15 years, drawing more than 30,000 museum-goers and rivalling the popularity of the Maxfield Parrish exhibition that ushered in the new millennium.

The exhibition was organized by the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut and was most recently on view at the Nassau County Museum of Art in Roslyn Harbor, New York. It will include 37 works from the Yale collection and an additional six from the Currier.