OCEANVILLE, N.J. – Philadelphia artist Paul Keene opens a solo exhibition on September 4, 2007 at The Noyes Museum of Art in Oceanville, N.J. The exhibition, entitled Paul Keene: Impressions of the Shore, includes paintings spanning a 35-year period, representing the latter part of the artist’s long- standing and accomplished career. Keene’s notable Cape May and Sky Windows groups in addition to three of his newest pieces from the Fire on the Slave Ship series, will be on display through November 11, 2007.

Keene always produces paintings in series or groups surrounding a central theme. These groupings allow the artist to explore the subjects with great detail in the studio. As for Impressions, collector and writer Lewis Tanner Moore explains, “These three groups of work, thematically linked by a focus on the sea and the sky, speak to the emotional range of Keene’s work. The expansive and open-ended vistas seen through his sky windows are a stark contrast to the constricted density of the monumental slave ship paintings. His paintings move us almost seamlessly from a whisper to a scream. .”

Keene was born in Philadelphia in 1920. He devoted his life to art, first teaching children’s art classes as a teen at a North Philadelphia community center and then as an art educator for 30 years. During his late teens and early 20s, Keene was mentored and supported by pioneer African-American Impressionist Allan Randall Freelon (1895-1960) and artist Henry Bozeman Jones (1889-1963). He also worked for the Pennsylvania WPA Federal Art Project with accomplished print maker Raymond Steth (1916-1997) and Dox Thrash (1893-1965). By his early 20’s, Keene was exhibiting at the famous African-American Pyramid Club on Girard Avenue in Philadelphia.

Keene spent most of his life in Philadelphia, with temporary periods abroad with the Air Corps during World War II, studying and exhibiting for three years in Paris, France, after the war and teaching art for two years in Port Au Haiti on a John Hay Whitney fellowship. Keene’s long and accomplished career has been acknowledged with many awards and exhibitions. His work has been shown internationally in 16 different countries and his paintings are in the collections of some of the finest museums throughout the world, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Dallas Museum of Art and the British Museum in London. More information on Keene can be found at www.dolanmaxwell.com/Paul%20Keene.html.

The Noyes Museum of Art was founded in 1983 to collect, preserve and exhibit American fine art, crafts and folk art with an emphasis on New Jersey artists and folk art forms, reflecting the area's long traditions, history, landscape and culture. General funding for The Noyes Museum of Art is provided by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Arts; the Mr. and Mrs. Fred Winslow Noyes Foundation; the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; the Odessa F. and Henry D. Kahrs Charitable Trust and the Shop Rite LPGA Classic. The Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday,10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Sunday, noon to 5:00 p.m. and closed on Mondays and major holidays. The Noyes Museum of Art is located one and a half miles south of Historic Smithville Village, off Route 9, on Lily Lake Road in Oceanville, New Jersey. For more information, please call (609) 652-8848 or visit www.noyesmuseum.org