Gallery & Main Hall Hours

Monday to Thursday 9:00 am to 9:00 pm
Friday 9:00 am to 6:00 pm
Saturday 9:00 am to 5:00pm           
Sunday Noon to 5:00 pm

Closed Sundays in July & August

Are you interested in exhibiting your artwork at the Library? 
Please click here for more information.

Joan Baldwin’s "Furniture Interactions" will be exhibited at the Newton Free Library Gallery, July 3 – 30, with a reception on Tuesday, July 10, 7:00PM.

In Baldwin’s world, chairs and tables fight, flirt, chase each other and generally run wild. Leaving their domestic surroundings behind, a whole new side of these "furniture creatures" (so dubbed by the artist) emerges once outdoors. There’s a "Hermaphrodite Loveseat," a top-heavy stuffed chair "Fashion Victim" falling of its own narcissistic weight into a lake and the painting "Wild Tables" in which one table is astride another, legs planted firmly in the high grasses.

These tongue-in-cheek narratives in oil and pastel are a natural outgrowth of Baldwin’s earlier work as an illustrator in the furniture industry. Although her original paintings depicted interior settings, eventually the furnishings moved outdoors and took on a life of their own. She has a strong sense of psychological motivation, investing the chairs and tables with very human stances, accentuating legs or busts, adding body hair and positioning them in ways that reveal how they feel about the other furniture-character in the scene or their own situation.

Baldwin has exhibited at the Arlington Center for the Arts, Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, Brickbottom Gallery in Somerville, with Women’s Caucus for Art and Cambridge Art Association, as well as at several juried shows nationwide. A member of the Waltham Mills Artists Association, she was a finalist award-winner in the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Artist Grant Program in 2000. She is represented by Fire Opal in Brookline.

You can visit her website at: http://www.nearts.com/JoanBaldwin/index.html

You can email the artist at: JoanJB@mediaone.net

"Go-Between," an exhibit of paintings by Li Tie will be on display in the Newton Free Library Gallery August 2 – 30.

Tie’s vivid pastel, oil and mixed-media paintings depict Chinese culture through the faces of its people. While some are straightforward portraits of traditional subjects – Tibetan monks, a man in a field playing a large wooden flute, a girl under a branch of cherry blossoms – others probe his feelings of living in America, yet feeling Chinese. "Made in the USA I" is an oil painting of his baby daughter lying in a narrow rice boat, with MADE IN USA stamped in red across the whole work. "This piece is about how national identity is automatically granted to whomever is born in this country, regardless of whatever historical and cultural background her parents have, or what cultural education they may prefer her to receive," the artist says.

Other paintings explore Native Americans culture while others are fantasies: a woman sleeps while a black cat crosses her path, a lion keeps watch and a many-armed Chinese god dances in the background – is she dreaming this?

Another series of works explores some "common conceptions about our bodies through the perspective of Chinese traditional medicine: acupuncture," he says. Acupuncture is "intertwined with Chinese philosophy, which is characterized by intense contemplation of the relationship between human beings and nature." Each work shows a different part of the body as the ground for certain acupuncture points; as a whole, they are disturbing, showing our vulnerabilities.

Tie’s work captivates in its synthesis of old and new, East and West. "This is the fundamental character of all my work," he says, "dialogues and conflicts between seemingly oppositional elements, creating a new multidimensional visual experience."

Tie has exhibited at the San Diego Museum and many other prestigious museums and galleries throughout the country as well as at the Beijing Concert Hall Gallery and the Capitol Museum.

"Recent Paintings of Boston" by James Leitch will be exhibited at the Newton Free Library, July 3 – July 30, with a reception on Wednesday, July 11, 6 – 8:00PM.

Leitch’s paintings depict the underside of Boston, the faded structures, bridges, deserted lots. Poetically rendered in warm colors and awash in sunlight, his oil paintings on masonite and canvas nostalgically depict abandoned buildings and work sites or relics of a long gone industry: the old South Boston MBTA power plant, a tender house by the Northern Avenue bridge where men tended the bridge which opened to let boats through.

He sees a repetition in these areas, "almost like a language, similar to that in a forest or along a riverbed," he says. In his works, overpasses and old railroad bridges arch across the sky, creating a sense of awe; empty warehouses or factories stand silent and still. Shapes repeat, creating a pattern of horizontal and diagonal lines, an abstract impression of the underpinnings of a city.

"I attempt to capture an impression of a scene – a glimpse of something fleeting," the artist says. "As Boston continues to change at a rapid pace, many of these scenes will slowly disappear - and when they do, lost is the story and richness that is part of the history of this area."

Leitch has exhibited at Galerie Mourlot and the Smoking Gallery in Boston, Gallery 70 in Worcester, Wheeler Gallery at UMass, Amherst, River Contemporary Art Gallery in Housatonic and with the Artists at the The Distillery Group in South Boston. In 1997, he was selected as a member of Artists Foundation Gallery 70, a two-year program designed to discover promising new artists.

STEVE TAVAN’S 
"SEEKING THE LIGHT" 

Steve Tavan’s photographic exhibit, "Seeking the Light," will be displayed at the Newton Free Library, August 1 – 30, with an opening reception on Wednesday, August 1, 6:30 – 8:30PM.

"Seeking the Light" combines three themes that have interested Tavan throughout his nearly 40 year photographic career: "Living Waters," "Plant Matters" and "Walls, Woods." Focusing on nature and buildings, Tavan strives to "reveal things not readily perceived, to find the ‘still, small voice’ in the scene and bring to the viewer a sense of the wonder and mystery of land and light," he says. Some images are studies of an element, the subject filling the frame, adding tension: branches bursting with bright red leaves, the rough wood grain of a fence, a roiling sea that projects exhilaration as well as a visceral angst.

Other works are more abstract, focusing on shape: a square of blue sky rimmed in white or a shot of concrete steps, the shadows of diagonal blue handrailings reflected as zig-zagging curves on the stairs below. Tavan explains his interest, "the engineer in me has always been drawn to geometry while the artist has been likewise drawn to form, texture and the emotions projected by shape." In fact, he enjoys playing a game of "hidden" dimensionality while walking about, viewing potential subjects, flattened, as in a photograph. "I have always delighted in the visual irony of seeing large architectural structures, while obviously three-dimensional, collapsing into the two-dimensional plane." Another abstract technique is to work with a pale or limited palette, simplifying the image and calling attention to form or light and shadow. This tendency is a reflection of his concentrating on black and white photography almost exclusively for decades, he says.

Tavan has photographed around the world although much of the work for the Library show was taken in this country, particularly in the Southwest. He received his early training from his father, a commercial photographer, "assisting" in the darkroom from the age of five. In high school, he free-lanced for local newspapers and studios. While studying Chemical Oceanography at M.I.T., he studied at their Creative Photography Gallery with Professor Minor White and later attended the Zone VI Workshops. He now works as an aerospace engineer.

Tavan has exhibited at the Fuller Museum of Art in Brockton from whom he was awarded Best Amateur Entry in their Members Exhibition, the Ogunquit Art Association, Zona Photographic Lab in Cambridge, Harvard Community Health Plan and other places. His current projects include a set of images evoking themes from the weekly parashah (the Jewish Bible reading cycle) and an architectural documentation of a synagogue renovation entitled "Sacred Places, Sacred Spaces."

Soprano and harpist Kathryn Mannyng will return to the Library with pianist Scott Nicholas for a concert of songs about eating, drinking, music and love, entitled "If Music be the Food of Love" at the Newton Free Library, Thursday, July 12, 7:30PM. The program will include songs by Turlough O’Carolan and traditional Celtic songs, accompanied by harp, as well as light classical music by Bach, Purcell, Schubert, Beethoven, Lehar and Bolcom, accompanied by piano.

Mannyng has performed featured roles in operas and given many solo classical recitals in her native Minnesota as well as in New England. She is also much in demand as a traditional harpist and has appeared at the New England Folk Festival, the House of Blues, Squawk Coffeehouse, Topsfield Fair, the Renaissance Festival in Salem, and most recently, "Bloomsday on Broadway" in New York City, which was broadcast live on WNYC. Her recordings include Tara’s Halls, Harp Music of Ireland, Thys Endrys Nyght and ‘Til Heartstrings Break. For more information on the performer, please see her website: www.mannyngharp.com.

Nicholas has performed in Rome, Sicily and throughout the U.S. including Carnegie Hall, Jordan Hall and many other places. In addition to his solo work, he performs as a member of the distinguished Boromeo String Quartet.

Bring your instrument to the Newton Free Library for a concert/lecture and jazz jam session on Saturday, July 14, 1:00PM. Led by local musician Tal Shalom-Kobi, the afternoon will begin with an interactive lecture to introduce various styles of music, such as jazz, Latin and rock & roll, with a youth ensemble demonstrating improvisation and rhythmic styles using a wide variety of musical pieces. At approximately 2:00PM, audience members who want to participate are invited to join an adult trio of piano, bass and drums for a jam session.

Shalom-Kobi plays piano, bass, trumpet and clarinet and specializes in instrumental and vocal ensemble conducting.

Pianist Paul Carlson will present a concert of works by Chopin, Neilsen, Debussy’s "Preludes," and "Odessas" by local composer Hayg Boyadjian, a series of short pieces, written in honor of his great-granddaughter Odessa. The concert will take place at the Newton Free Library on Thursday, August 9, 7:00PM.

Carlson performs frequently in the Boston area as both a solo recitalist and as a collaborative musician, most recently at Boston University, Tufts University, the Federal Reserve Bank, First Parish in Watertown and Brookline Public Library. He has taught at Gordon College in Wenham, the B.U. Tanglewood Institute and the Lexington Music School. His research for his doctoral degree in piano performance, which he received from B.U. in 1998, focused on Debussy’s piano performance style. Carlson is also keenly interested in pianists who were composing during the decades leading up to WWI. His concerts often feature music written during this period as well as unfairly neglected music from the early 20^th century and the music of living composers.

Pianist Alfred Watson will present a concert of Romantic works by Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schubert, Debussy and Scriabin as well as original compositions, written in the Romantic style. The solo recital will take place at the Newton Free Library on Wednesday, August 22, 7:30PM.

Watson has performed at Carnegie Recital Hall and Aeolian Hall in New York City, the Garden State Arts Center in New Jersey, as a guest artist on numerous radio stations and internationally at the Forum Theater in Warsaw as well as at the home of Frederick Chopin in Zelazowa Wola, Poland.

A composer as well, his CD of original works, "Romantic Reflections," was recently released.

The acclaimed cello/piano duo of Hekun Wu and Elise Yun will perform a varied program of "Songs and Dances from Distant Lands" at the Newton Free Library on Thursday, August 2, 7:30PM. Journeying from the early Baroque dances of Pergolesi in Stravinsky’s "Suite Italienne" to Beethoven’s "Variations on a Theme from Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’" to the Eurasian sounds of Tcherepnin’s "Songs and Dances," the program traverses time and explores the cultural influences of East and West.

Tcherepnin’s beautiful collection of folk music represents the varied ethnic groups of his homeland: Russian, Georgian, Tartar and Kazakh. Cellist Wu was encouraged by the late composer’s widow to perform his works; she sent him scores and tapes of Tcherepnin’s music to study from.

The husband/wife duo of Wu and Yun has presented recitals in Shanghai, Singapore, Italy, Austria and along the East Coast of the U.S.

As a soloist, Wu has appeared throughout Asia, in Europe and the U.S. Since his celebrated premieres of the Milhaud First Concerto and the Elgar Concerto in China, he has given recitals in Austria, Italy, France and in America, in Boston, Washington, DC and Minneapolis/Saint Paul. In January 2000, he was the featured soloist with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in a Millennium Concert in their new Grand Theatre. The China Times has noted, "Wu’s playing combines virtuosic technique with thoughtful and poetic expression." As a teacher, he has conducted masterclasses and workshops in conservatories and universities in Asia and the U.S.

Known for her musical intelligence and expression, Yun has performed in solo and collaborative recitals in the U.S. and abroad, including the Ravinia Festival and Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall as a winner in the Artists International Auditions. A finalist in the Music Teachers National Association competition, Yun performed and conducted workshops in South Korea, Japan and China. As a proponent of new music, she has premiered numerous works in Boston and New York. Yun has taught at New York University and the Juilliard School and currently serves on the music faculty at Wellesley College.

Soprano Doris Marion and pianist William Merrill will perform works by Bellini, Donizetti, Chopin, Rorem, Barber, Gershwin and others in a concert on Thursday, August 16, 7:30PM at the Newton Free Library.

Boston native Marion made her musical career in Europe for many years, performing in a series of operatic roles and concert performances in Belgium, Holland, France, Germany and Italy, appearing in many of Europe’s prestigious concert halls. A regular recitalist for radio in western Europe, she also appeared in several television spectaculars in Belgium and Luxembourg.

Locally, she has given concerts for the French Library in Boston, the King’s Chapel Concert Series, the Federal Reserve Midday Concerts and a series of programs of Italian song literature for the Dante Alighieri Society. She has reached as many as 20,000 children over the years with her show for public school children, "Around the World with Doris," a program of songs in six languages, funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She last appeared at the Newton Free Library in 1998 with a program of "Unusual and Ironic Songs by Kurt Weill." Her new CD is entitled "Doris Marion: Affections of My Heart."

One of the premiere collaborative pianists in the Boston area, Merrill has accompanied many singers in Boston and New York, including recitals at Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall. In recent seasons he has concertized in Rome, Beijing and Shanghai. Principal Coach and Accompanist of the Boston Aria Guild, he has also been associated with the Boson Academy of Music, the Opera Company of Boston and the Boston Lyric Opera Company.