JURIED BY JOSEPHINE HALVORSON, Professor of Art, Chair of Graduate Studies in Painting at Boston University

Halvorson is Professor of Art and Chair of Graduate Studies in Painting at BU.  She has taught at Yale University’s School of Art from 2010-2016 where she held the position of Senior Critic in the MFA program in Painting & Printmaking and at Princeton University, Cooper Union, Columbia University and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.   She has lectured at over fifty schools and institutions in the US and Europe.  She is an artist working in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing.  She is represented by Sikkema Jenkins & CO, NY and Peter Freeman, Inc, Paris.  josephinehalvorson.com

Halvorson grew up on Cape Cod, where she first studied art on the beaches of Provincetown and with Barnet Rubenstein at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She attended The Cooper Union School of Art (BFA, 2003), and continued her interdisciplinary education at Columbia University’s School of the Arts (MFA, 2007). Halvorson has been granted three yearlong fellowships in Europe: the United States Fulbright to Vienna (2003-4), the Harriet Hale Woolley at the Fondation des États-Unis, Paris (2007-8), and as the first American to receive the Rome Prize at the French Academy at the Villa Medici (2014-2015). She is the recipient of several awards, including the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2009) and a New York Foundation for the Arts award in Painting (2010), and has been awarded residencies at Moly-Sabata in Sablons, France (2014) and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in Captiva, Florida (2016).

Her work has been exhibited worldwide and is represented by Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, and Peter Freeman, Inc., Paris. Currently on view at Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, NY is her first outdoor sculpture exhibition, curated by Nora Lawrence. Her first museum survey was in 2015 at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC, curated by Cora Fisher. Halvorson has had solo and group exhibitions in New York, London, Paris, Seoul, and Rome. Her work has been written about in exhibition catalogs and significant publications, and reviews have appeared regularly in Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Frieze, and Art in America. She is one of the subjects of Art21’s documentary series, New York Close Up.

History of the Competition

FRANCES N. RODDY,

“If I were to paint this sunset, no one would believe me.”

In years past, Concord Art Association sponsored several competitions, often times based on a theme. About the time of Frances Roddy’s death, our Art Committee, chaired by George Nick, felt that to ensure participation by both emerging and professional artists that we needed to award more substantial prizes. The idea of honoring his mother in this manner resonated with Gibbs Roddy and The Frances N. Roddy Open Competition was born. We are grateful to the Roddy family for allowing us to continue to honor Frances by providing opportuities for other artists. Her memory not only lives on in the hearts of her many friends and family but has become woven into the fabric of Concord Art Association.

Frances Newbury Roddy was born in the small town of Belgrade, Montana, on November 13, 1914. Despite having a superstitious bent, she always claimed that Friday the 13th was her lucky day. The Belgrade Company, at which her father, Egbert, had worked for many years, went bankrupt during the Great Depression. Frances’ parents moved to Yellowstone National Park where her father found new employment. Meanwhile, Egbert’s first cousin, Edith Morse Robb of Concord, invited Frances to come east to live with her and attend Concord Academy.

Frances arrived in Concord in 1931 with only one formal dress in her trunk. At the time, Edith Robb was widowed and living alone on Monument Street. Her husband, Russell, had died in 1927, _ve years after having served as one of the founding board members of the Concord Art Association. Frances lived with Edith Robb for a number of years, during which time Edith was an active benefactor of the Art Association. Despite its auspicious Grand Opening in 1923, at which time its walls boasted the works of Claude Monet, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassat, and Childe Hassam, the Art Association struggled during the Great Depression. Mrs. Robb’s commitment to its success left an indelible impression on Frances, who often remarked that it was, along with Concord’s Trinity Episcopal Church, her most dear community organization.

Frances married Gilbert Roddy in 1942 and thereafter settled permanently in Concord. Her interest in art blossomed, prompting Frances to take oil painting lessons in the 1950s from local artist, Loring Coleman, who in later years became one of the Art Association’s most beloved members. During the 1960s, Frances explored sculpting in wood, during which time she greatly admired the work of local Art Association sculptress, Mary Ogden Abbott. During the 1970s and the early1980s, Frances enjoyed sculpting in alabaster and bronze under the direction of Peter Abate at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln. She exhibited her sculpture in various shows in Concord and Boston, and was elected to the Copley Society, the country’s oldest art association. However, by the late 1980s, her artistic interests turned almost exclusively to the medium of watercolor.

For the next 20 years, Frances enjoyed participating in watercolor workshops around the world, and taking watercolor classes from her longtime Association friend, Marjorie Young. With Marge’s support, Frances became fascinated with color. She particularly enjoyed watching sunsets and often remarked, “If I painted the colors I see right now, no one would believe what I put down on paper.” Nevertheless, she never hesitated to do so, and developed a deep fascination with color during her later artistic years.

Frances truly loved the Concord Art Association. In particular, she cherished the friendships she made with fellow artists through the many classes and exhibits in which she participated. She was very proud of being one of the Association’s Distinguished Artists.

Frances enjoyed attending the Art Association’s frequent openings because of the quality and diversity of the works shown. She was especially fond of the photographs of her close friend and member, Alice Moulton. In short, Frances found the people and dynamism of the Art Association invigorating. ConcordArt Association was a central, and wonderful, aspect of her life in Concord.

Gibbs Roddy, son