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Week of 3 April 1998 Vol. I, No. 26 Arts When the artist hangs the show by Joan Schwartz Portrait of Harold Imber, Jon Imber, 1982. An unusual exhibition of portraits currently at the George Sherman Union Gallery includes two paintings by Jon Imber (SFA'77). What makes the exhibit out of the ordinary is that the others are by 24 artists representing the best in contemporary portraiture -- from Imber's point of view. Art exhibitions are almost always selected by curators -- people who have studied the history and aesthetics of art, but who are not artists themselves. Recent Portraits: A Personal Selection is the first exhibition curated by Imber, and he is clearly enthusiastic about the experience. "I really wanted this not to be business as usual," he says. "I wanted to move away from the New York focus of the art world -- to include Boston artists and people who are not famous as well as the famous." An acclaimed representational painter, Imber's work focuses primarily on the figure and landscape. The intense, expressive energy of his brushwork has been compared to painters like Van Gogh and Philip Guston, his teacher at the School for the Arts. His work appears in numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Harvard's Fogg Art Museum, the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis, MIT's Hayden Gallery, and several corporate collections. He is represented by the Nielson Gallery in Boston. The work Imber has selected covers a wide range of styles, from the careful restraint of an Alex Katz woodcut to Philip Allen's unrestrained and gestural self-portrait. Included are the playful black-and-white "Portrait of Head with Hat" by New York artist Stuart Diamond and intensely beautiful, vividly colored self-portraits by Boston artist George Nick. Candace Walters is represented by "Memory Vessel," a beautifully spiritual work in pencil gouache and mixed media, and Charles Parness by a quartet of portraits overflowing with humor and flowers. Imber has chosen a large painting of his father, Harold, completed in 1982, and a recent self-portrait to represent his own work. Portrait of Head with Hat, Stuart Diamond, 1997. Fairfield Porter said that for a portrait to be successful, it must first be a painting -- that likeness or recognizability need not come first, or even third, for a painter. This is echoed by Imber, who in describing the work of Guston, writes, "What haunts me in the paintings is their light, their color, the expressive lines, and the tension created by the position of the forms . . . the incredible luminosity created by his blue and cadmium red." Recent Portraits is the first of three exhibitions organized by SFA's division of visual arts. "Our painting curriculum is based on the three major forms -- portraiture, still life, and landscape," explains Katherine French, SFA program coordinator. "Over the next few years we will present an exhibition of each of these forms at the GSU Gallery, curated by a distinguished artist who works in that form and who has either studied or taught at SFA." Recent Portraits: A Personal Selection will be at the GSU Gallery through May 3. An opening reception will be held on Friday, April 3, from 5 to 7 p.m. Jon Imber and George Nick will hold a dialogue on the exhibition on Monday, April 13, at 1 p.m. Gallery hours are Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m.