Boccia show spreads across every corner of the gallery

Philip Slein Gallery in the Central West End is using every available room to display the work of Edward E. Boccia, a practice the owner has rarely adopted during the business's 23 years in operation. The exhibition, titled Edward E. Boccia: An American Modernist, opens with a reception on October 23 and remains on view through December 19.

The gallery at 4735 McPherson usually limits solo shows to its front room. For Boccia, who lived in St. Louis for 60 years, the walls are occupied by pieces from across his entire career. Gallery owner Philip Slein called the effort a major undertaking, noting that only a museum-level institution could surpass the scale of this presentation.

Boccia was born in New Jersey in 1921 to Italian parents. After studying at Pratt Institute and the Art Students League in New York, he served in the World War II Ghost Army before earning degrees from Columbia University. He taught at Columbus Art School in Ohio, where he introduced Bauhaus principles to his students, and later joined Washington University in St. Louis in 1951.

He remained at Washington University for more than three decades, retiring in 1986 as professor emeritus. Art historian Rosa Berland, who is based in New York, described his teaching style as rigorous but encouraging of personal expression. Boccia produced thousands of paintings and continued working until his death in 2012 at age 91. Slein recalled that the artist was always drawing unless he was sleeping or eating.

The current exhibition features more than 30 paintings. The front room displays large-scale works, including the nine-panel polyptych Eugene's Journey and the 2004 triptych David's Death. A hallway contains mythic ocean scenes, while the final room uses a salon wall to trace his evolution from a 1950s portrait to a 2012 painting. Influences from Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, and Max Beckmann are visible throughout the collection.

A companion book titled Edward E. Boccia: Painter of Nightmares and Dreams will be published by Hirmer during the show. Written by Berland after 14 years of research, it serves as the first major monograph on the artist. The book includes scholarly essays and fold-out plates that show the scale of his multi-panel pieces. Berland credited Morton D. May as Boccia's primary patron and described the artist's success in St. Louis as the journey of a New York native finding his niche.