LOS ANGELES (AP) – Comedian, actor, writer, musician, and now we can add art curator to that long list of titles placed alongside Steve Martin’s name.
The man who brought bluegrass music to mainstream audiences and introduced the banjo and balloon animals to comedy routines has a new passion: He wants to imbue in U.S. audiences the same deep admiration he has for the works of Lawren Harris, arguably Canada’s most revered artist and one almost completely unknown in the U.S.
He’ll get that chance beginning Sunday when “The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris” opens at Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum.
The show, which travels to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and Canada’s Art Gallery of Ontario next year, will be the first and likely the last exhibition he curates, Martin said earlier this week as he led a visitor on a private tour.
“I love this!” he exclaimed, pointing to a large oil-on-canvas work depicting Canada’s Lake Superior in a way so colorful as to appear almost psychedelic, while at the same time maintaining a look of total realism.