Rackstraw Downes, Farm Buildings Near the Rio Grande: West End of the Barn, P.M., 2008, 24 x 62 inches. Courtesy the Artist and Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York.

Rackstraw Downes, At the Confluence of Two Ditches Bordering a Field with Four Radio Towers, 1995, 48 x 46 inches. Private Collection.

This is the first major survey of paintings by the MacArthur Foundation “genius” award-winning artist Rackstraw Downes (born 1939). With more than 30 works, many of them multiple-part canvases, the exhibition features his minutely detailed paintings of exterior and interior panoramic scenes of the American landscape and urban locations. The exhibition traces the artist’s career through major examples of his work that were painted in Maine, New Jersey, New York, and Texas, including a haunting depiction of the untenanted interior spaces in the World Trade Center in 1998.

Rackstraw Downes: Onsite Paintings, 1972–2008 was organized by the Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York. The publication and exhibition are made possible through a generous grant from the Lannan Foundation with additional support provided by Rex Auchincloss, Philip H. Isles, Francis H. Williams, and one anonymous donor. Media support is provided by WCSH 6 and Mainebiz.

Exhibition Catalogue

In the News:

“A Rackstraw Downes restrospective at the PMA”
Portland Phoenix, Wednesday, January 19, 2011

“Rackstraw Downes at the Portland Museum of Art”
The Free Press, Wednesday, January 26, 2011

“The Art of Rackstraw Downes”
207 WCSH 6, Tuesday, January 18, 2011

“Plein-air panorama”
The Maine Sunday Telegram, Sunday, January 2, 2011

“Painting with a photographer’s eye”
Boston Globe, December 24, 2010

“Rackstraw Downes paints with painstaking detail, sharp focus and a unique perspective”
Lewiston Sun Journal, December 23, 2010

“Watershed Downes”
The Portland Press Herald, December 16, 2010

“The Verity of Art: Rackstraw Downes’s Onsite Paintings”
Artes Magazine, December 13, 2010

“Street Life as Still Life”
New York Times, July 25, 2010

“Rendering the Landscape Less Traveled By”
New York Times, July 15, 2010