About the Exhibition

Like any three-artist exhibition, Friends and Mentors invites comparisons of each artist’s works. However, because of the intimate collaboration of the artists in this exhibition, comparisons are perhaps more meaningful and obvious than in an exhibition where artists are strangers to one another. While each of the artists of Friends and Mentors has individual style, many mutual influences are apparent in their works.

John Snow’s early imagery was heavily influenced by Maxwell Bates who was the more experienced artist. Like Bates, Snow created narrative compositions of people in public places like theatres and taverns. His early works express somber and serious overtones but later works show an increasingly optimistic attitude. The majority of Snow’s later lithographs depict loving family scenes, bold images of fruit, flowers, landscapes and children at play. Snow’s lithographs are characterized by rich colors and distorted by recognizable subjects. His art presents a calm, safe and warm world.

Bates’ lithographs are often less technically complex, but are usually more intellectually challenging than Snow’s. Many of his works focus on taverns, show girls, fortune tellers, and figures of authority. Bates’ lithographs share with the viewer a sense of mankind’s struggle to come to terms with life. While Snow’s works are domestically romantic, Bates’ works are urban and melancholy and depict the social and political sides of life.

Barry Smylie’s portfolio has a two sided nature that clearly shows the separate influence of Snow and Bates. On one hand, he has produced a body of prints that are quite romantic and like Snow’s, elicit a sentimental response from viewers. On the other side, he has created numerous conceptual works which have a stronger intellectual appeal much like Bates’. Perhaps because of his academic and technical training, Smylie’s works vary both technically and intellectually to a greater degree than any produced by Snow or Bates. Smylie enriches his images by combining Snow’s use of different textural patterns and overlays of intense colors, with Bates’ theme of social statements.

Friends and Mentors was curated from Snow’s collection of all three artists’ works. The title of the exhibition comes from their personal friendship and the way each one was either mentor or student of the others. The works have been selected to document the individual style of each artist while demonstrating some of the influences they had on each other.

Richard L. White