“Celestial Divison” by Lynne Mapp Drexler, Part of the Exhibit “Orchestrations in Color” on Exhibit at the New Moss Gallery, 100 Fore Street, on Munjoy Hill. It’s Cost is $48,000 and was Painted in 1966. This is the Second Art Gallery for Moss in Southern Maine.
A Sitting Area Inside the New 100 Fore Street Moss Galleries on Munjoy Hill With Lynne Mapp Drexler Paintings Exhibited on the Wall.
The much anticipated grand opening of the Moss Galleries on Munjoy Hill was canceled indefinitely because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’ll just have to wait for another day – another year. This is the second gallery owned by Liz Moss. The first is located in the Falmouth Shopping Center, Route 1, Falmouth.
Rather, anyone interested in the current exhibit, “Orchestrations in Color” by Lynne Mapp Drexler, a deceased abstract expressionist painter, needs to make an appointment to see the collection of her eighteen (18) paintings on exhibit until December 31, 2021 at 100 Fore Street, on Munjoy Hill. To make an appointment, please call 207 – 781-2620 or email: liz@elizabethmossgalleries.com.
The art work of Drexler, a native of Virginia who was born in 1928, has in recent years enjoyed popularity that she did not experience during her lifetime. She moved to New York City in the late 1950s. In 1961 she met the successful abstract painter John Hultberg, They were married shortly thereafter. Drexler’s work was largely overlooked in New York while Hultberg’s work overshadowed hers. The couple moved to Mohegan Island in search of a simpler life that was hoped would temper Hultberg’s habit of excessive imbibing.
Monhegan Island is where she lived most of the year. and where she died in December of 1999. She and Hultberg were estranged at the time. He had returned home to New York City where he died in 2005.
Drexler’s work is described by Moss as: “Large-scale, lush colorful abstract works – mindful of the work of Van Gogh and Gustav Klint” in a press release. Her work is in high demand these days. “Her work has become so popular. It’s almost as though she was painting in the wrong era,” said Laura Donnolly, an employee of Moss Galleries, Falmouth.
“This is the largest exhibition of Drexler’s works in Maine since the Portland Museum of Art’s retrospective in 2008,” said Moss. “It’s an honor to open my new gallery in Portland with an exhibition of her work.”
Drexler’s work is part of the permenant collections of the Musum of Modern Art, Monhegan Museum, the Farnsworth Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum among others.
An exhibit of the work of local artist Charlie Hewitt will open at the Moss Galleries, 100 Fore Street, on January 6, 2022.