Art Beat: 'Ira/30 Years of Standing Still' is UMD tribute to much-admired model

In an introductory text to the current exhibition at the University Art Gallery, Memory Holloway (Professor Emerita, Art Education, Art History & Media Studies) of UMD’s College of Visual and Performing Arts wrote that for over three decades, “Ira Cohen stood, sat and reclined as the model for the art department.”

He passed away at the age of 70 last January.

By Holloway’s estimation, over 8,500 students drew, painted and created sculptures derived from the careful study of his gaunt anatomy and unique visage.

While hardly what one would consider a traditional muse, Cohen clearly inspired generations of visual artists. A consummate professional, he would — without complaint —  take on difficult poses, contorting his body in positions that surely caused discomfort.

As Holloway noted, “Modeling, for Ira, was a serious undertaking, a profession that links him to a long history of artist’s models.”

“Ira / 30 Years of Standing Still,” presents dozens of works of the much admired model by faculty and former students of the CVPA not only in the University Gallery proper but also in the adjoining Crapo Gallery, at the Star Store Campus Bubbler Gallery (displaying revolving artwork by current students and alumni on two television screens over two water fountains), and in Gallery 244, in which a continually running animation features Cohen digging a hole.

Bette Carney’s “Ira (Sitting on Bench)” is an acrylic painting from 2016. It is a flurry of brilliant orange and subdued blue in which Ira, legs and arms crossed, stares off at something or nothing in the distance. His eyeglasses rest upside down inches away. His distorted gray shadow is cast on the wall and suggests something primal and wraithlike.

Tiago Finato’s 2013 oil “Ira Facing Mirror" is a warm earthy study with the model’s back to the viewer, his reflection obscured by light and shadow, suggesting a certain unknowability, perhaps even to himself.

Donald Beal’s 2019 small framed drawing, simply called “Ira” appears as an unrestrained and quick headshot sketch which a colleague referred to as “da Vinci good.”  Beal is a masterful draftsman that manages to make it look both too easy and too difficult.

“Ira in Isolation,” a charcoal and acrylic work by Matthew Meserve, features Cohen in the fetal position on a large curved cushion and it reveals a palpable sense of vulnerability; it stands in stark contrast to Liliya Krys’s “Floating l,” acrylic on paper, which projects nothing but strength and endurance as the model rests with his belly and genitals on a stool, legs lifted awkwardly off the ground.

There are a number of busts of Cohen on pedestals. The one that is the most striking is not officially given a title but it is referred to as “a life cast of Ira.” Formed from Hydrocal plaster, it is a terrific work created by an all-star CVPA team that included Rick Creighton, Stacy Latt Savage, Ellen Watson Lewis, Hank Gatlin, Kim Barry, Eric Lintala, Sara Heidrick and a group of sculpture students.

Much of the art is straightforward in the sense that it is “working from the model,” and is ultimately about the study of the figure in general and of Cohen in particular.  But certain works demonstrate a wonderful sense of projection in which the artists suggest a story beyond simple observation.

For example, Allen TenBusschen’s 2017 “Son of Amittai,” an illustration featuring Cohen in a tub, is a reference to the Old Testament Jonah, who after having been spat out the belly of the whale (on God’s command) was bathed in seawater.

Anthony Fisher’s 2012 oil painting “The Supplicant,” a thick impasto, makes the most of Cohen’s “every man, any man” appearance  to convey a sense of piety and humility.

Drawn directly on a wall in the Crapo Gallery is an untitled posthumous charcoal drawing of Cohen by Amy Araujo.  He is in the nude, head bowed, hands clasped as if in prayer. A foot away, she has scribbled “nothing lasts forever.”

“Ira / 30 Years of Standing Still” is on display at the University Art Gallery, College of Visual and Performing Arts, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, 715 Purchase St., New Bedford, through Sept. 3.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Art Beat: 'Ira/30 Years of Standing Still' at UMass Dartmouth