Artworks

William L. Hawkins: An Imaginative Geography

Publisher: Skira Editore 

First Edition: 2018

Hardcover: 192 pages

This fully illustrated volume was published on the ocassion of the eponymous traveling exhibiton, which was on view at the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio (February 16 - May 20, 2018), The Mingei International Museum (June  9 - September 3, 2018), the Figge Art Museum (September 22 - December 30, 2018), and the Columbus Museum, Georgia (January 28 - April 29, 2019)

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From his paintings of exotic wild animals to dramatic depictions of the major buildings in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, artist William Hawkins always wanted his pictures to sweep viewers off their feet. William L. Hawkins: An Imaginative Geography was the first major exhibition in more than a decade to feature the full breadth of Hawkins's oeuvre.

Drawn from important public and private collections across the United States and Europe, William L. Hawkins: An Imaginative Geography presented 52 of Hawkins’s most important paintings, some well-known pieces and others rarely seen. The exhibition covered all of Hawkins’s favorite subject matter, including cityscapes, landscapes, exotic places, animals, current events, historic scenes and religious scenes. It also included one of his rare freestanding sculptural assemblages. 

One of the more remarkable accomplishments of this exhibition was that it brought together eight of the nine known versions of Hawkins’s Last Supper, one of his best-known subjects.