Exhibit rediscovers breadth of Bucci’s art

Andrew Bucci’s brushstrokes — a generous, confetti-like staccato that pulses with energy and spirit — enliven the canvases to such a degree it’s easy to forget, for a moment, that he’s gone.

The prominent Mississippi-born artist died at 92 in November, after a prolific artistic career that earned lifetime achievement honors from both the Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts (2009) and the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters (2012). He created the commemorative image, “Figure in Green” for the 2014 USA International Ballet Competition.

Belhaven University’s new exhibition, “Andrew Bucci: Rediscovered,” on view through Aug. 29 in the gallery in the Bitsy Irby Visual Arts & Dance Center on campus, is an intimate retrospective of works, with 30 paintings from the 1950s-’90s and six needlepoints 2008-14. (In a nifty aside, Irby was the first person to purchase a painting from Bucci.) A catalog accompanies the show. Several works, including “Field of Flowers,” were art show award-winners over the years.

Brown’s Fine Art & Framing in Jackson has carried Bucci’s works for decades. But this solo exhibition, in the works at the time of his death, is the first for Bucci in Jackson in a non-commercial gallery.

“I think he was elated to have that opportunity,” said Jack Kyle, senior director of arts development and chairman of arts administration at Belhaven University. Kyle had also asked him to curate it. All the works were selected from Bucci’s personal collection, including several that once decorated his Maryland home and studio.

He’d begun to have a number of his oil paintings professionally restored before he was even approached about the Belhaven show, the artist’s niece, Margaret Bucci of Jackson, said. Many of the works have never have either never been shown in public, or haven’t been displayed in a long time. “A lot of these things are going to be brand new to people who admire his artwork.

“He’s known as a great moderninst painter, but he was very much anchored in the fundamentals. They’ll see that in his portrait works, and when you walk in this room, you see the evolution of his style over decades.”

Bucci took life-drawing classes at the Académie Julian in Paris while serving in Europe during World War II and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Bucci learned early from iconic Jackson artist and teacher Marie Hull, and after his Art Institute education at her encouragement, shared what he’d learned there with her.

Arranged chronologically, a visual sweep of the gallery takes in early family portraits of his father, grandmother and great aunt, Matisse-inspired still lifes and figures, modernist landscapes, mythology-inspired works and framed needlepoints selected by Kyle and Margaret Bucci. The stories of Icarus, Daphne and Pandora inspired numerous works, including the blue nude “Falling Man” seen here in a painting on paper and needlepoint, and several depictions of faces in leaves. “He loved playing with that story,” Margaret Bucci, said of the Apollo and Daphne myth.

“There are a couple of needlepoints of Pandora, but he surrounds her with butterflies, instead of evil things,” she said. That seems right in line with the often joyous reaction his bright paintings, full of movement, inspire.

Mississippi art historian Patti Carr Black said, “I think he’s one of the most imaginative and exciting painters we have. And he’s very understated in his art, so it takes some contemplation from the viewer to really appreciate what he’s doing.”

That rediscovery is something even his niece has experienced, with his 1956 painting “Greenery.” “Every time I look at it, a new color pops out.”

Bucci worked as a U.S. Weather Bureau meteorologist in Maryland 1956-1979, but his art formed a dual career and he was busy on the exhibition circuit, always entering paintings in shows throughout the Southeast, producing art and teaching art colony workshops.

His homecoming to Vicksburg was bittersweet, following evacuation of his longtime Maryland home after the threat of landslides nearby and then several months in motels as he finalized the move last year. He continued sketching, even in motel rooms — “beautiful drawings in colored pencils, and they were each one of them like a small masterpiece,” Margaret Bucci said. He was producing artwork until a few weeks before he died.

“But he was thinking about the show, thinking about paintings that he wanted to exhibit here. I love that this celebration of his life is continuing and he’s getting much-deserved attention for this body of work.”

To contact Sherry Lucas, email slucas@gannett.com or call (601) 961-7283. Follow @SherryLucas1 on Twitter.

If you go

What: “Andrew Bucci: Rediscovered”

When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays, through Aug. 29

Where: Belhaven University Gallery in the Bitsy Irby Visual Arts & Dance Center

Cost: Free

Contact: Buccirediscovered.com; group visits (601) 968-8937