PROVIDENCE, R.I. — January 25, 2006 — The University of Rhode Island Feinstein Providence Campus and the International Gallery of Heritage and Culture are featuring the works of nationally known portrait artist, Robert Shetterly. Entitled “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” the exhibit shows works that Shetterly began in the wake of 9/11 and features several large pieces never before exhibited as a series.

Free and open to the public, the exhibit is on display through Feb. 24 and is located on the first- and second-floor lobbies at URI’s Feinstein Providence Campus at 80 Washington St., Providence. Hours are Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

All of the Americans featured in his works are those who the artist says “put themselves on the line, stood up for human rights issues, and made the United States a stronger nation.” Biographical information and study guide materials accompany the exhibit.

Shetterly, who lives in Brooksville, Me., graduated in 1969 from Harvard College with a degree in English Literature. After graduating, he taught himself drawing, printmaking, and painting. While trying to become proficient in printmaking and painting, he illustrated widely. For 12 years he did editorial page drawings for the Maine Times, illustrated National Audubon’s children’s newspaper Audubon Adventures, and approximately 30 books.

Now, his paintings and prints are in collections all over the U.S. and Europe. A collection of his drawings and etchings, Speaking Fire at Stones, was published in 1993. He is well known for his series of 70 painted etchings based on William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell, and for another series of 50 painted etchings reflecting on the metaphor of the Annunciation. His painting tends toward the narrative and the surreal, and he has not been, until this time, a portrait painter.

Among the 60 portraits being shown are Mahammad Ali, James Baldwin, Ossie Davis, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Ralph Ellison, Dwight Eisenhower, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Mother Jones, Helen Keller, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothea Lange, Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, Paul Robeson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Chase Smith, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Henry David Thoreau, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Mark Twain, Malcolm X, Walt Whitman, and Chief Joseph Hinmaton Yalaktit.

Pictured above

Americans Who Tell the Truth on exhibition at URI’s Feinstein Providence Campus. Shown at the show’s opening, artist Robert Shetterly, meets with campus visitors.