Opening in conjunction with the CMCA Summer Gala on the evening of Friday, August 18, is the exhibition Linden Frederick | Night Stories, featuring fifteen new paintings by the Belfast, Maine-based artist, created in collaboration with fifteen outstanding American writers, including:
Pulitzer Prize-winner Anthony Doerr (All the Light We Cannot See)
National Book Award-finalist Andre Dubus III (House of Sand and Fog)
National Book Award-winner Louise Erdrich (The Round House)
National Book Award-finalist Joshua Ferris (Then We Came to the End)
International bestselling author Tess Gerritsen (Rizzoli & Isles series)
Academy Award-nominee Lawrence Kasdan (Raiders of the Lost Ark)
Kirkus Prize-winner Lily King (Euphoria)
Edgar Award-winner Dennis Lehane (Mystic River)
Newberry Medal-winner Lois Lowry (The Giver)
PEN/Faulkner Award-winner Ann Patchett (Bel Canto)
New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice (Crazy in Love)
Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Russo (Empire Falls)
Pulitzer Prize-winner Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge)
Academy Award-winner Ted Tally (The Silence of the Lambs)
PEN USA Award-winner Daniel Woodrell (Winter’s Bone)
The exhibition, Night Stories, and the accompanying book, have been eight years in the making. When artist Linden Frederick (b. 1953) realized a growing number of his collectors are novelists and screenwriters, he wondered what would happen if the writer-illustrator relationship were reversed: the painting first, then the writing. The result is Night Stories. Fifteen celebrated American fiction writers each agreed to select one painting especially created by Frederick as inspiration and then, over the following months, write a unique story inspired by it.
A native of Amsterdam, New York, Linden Frederick’s paintings are celebrated for their evocative light and atmosphere. Compared favorably to Edward Hopper’s American scene paintings, Frederick’s contemporary works suggest the human presence without depicting it, allowing the viewer to complete the narrative.
Frederick has lived and worked in Belfast, Maine since 1989. He has had more than twenty solo exhibitions of his work throughout the United States, including the exhibition You Are Here, held at CMCA in Rockport, in 2010. Night Stories will be on view at CMCA through November 5, 2017.
Events
CMCA 2017 Summer Gala | Night Stories
Linden Frederick | Night Stories Artist Reception
Related Programming
Tuesday Talk | Night Stories with Linden Frederick | August 29, 2017
Sunday Salon | Linden Frederick + Tess Gerritsen | September 17, 2017
Tuesday Talk | Night Stories with Linden Frederick | September 26, 2017
Sunday Salon | Linden Frederick + Richard Russo | October 22, 2017
Exhibition press release here.
In The Press
Hauntingly into the night with painter Linden Frederick and a starry stable of writers in Portland Press Herald by Frank O. Smith, November 19, 2017
Fall Art and Music Happenings in New England in food fun & faraway places by Kelly Stilwell, October 25, 2017
Literary Luminaries Respond to a Painter’s Dark Scenes of Maine in Hyperallergic by Debbie Hagan, October 3, 2017
‘Night Stories’ is an intriguing exhibit at CMCA in Sun Journal by Pat Davidson Reef, September 23, 2017
More fall books: 3 to read, by Stephen and Owen King, Sarah Perry and Linden Frederick in Portland Press Herald by Joshua Bodwell, August 27, 2017
From Painting to Page in Take Magazine by Nathan Frontiero, August 25, 2017
‘Night Stories’ by Linden Frederick at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Blouin Artinfo, August 24, 2017
15 Acclaimed Writers Take Literary Cues from Realist Paintings by Linden Frederick in Groundbreaking Exhibition in ARTFIX Daily, August 17, 2017
Artist Linden Frederick — Night Stories: Cozy to Creepy in The Free Press by Christine Parrish, August 2017
Working on Their Night Moves in DownEast Magazine by Frances Killea, August 2017
Short Fiction: A Novelist Takes a Cue from Art in Modern Magazine by Richard Russo, June 5, 2017
With ‘Night Stories,’ painter Linden Frederick teams up with writers to finish the narrative in Portland Press Herald by Bob Keyes, April 2017
Bewitched, Bothered, and Bedazzled in Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors by Ann Dodds Costello, 2017
A Maine Artist Inspires 15 Authors’ Tales in Wall Street Journal by Gamerman, April 28, 2017