Bayly opens John Dos Passos exhibition

Best known as a major literary figure from the 1920s through the 1960s with such books as Three Soldiers, Manhattan Transfer, and the U.S.A. trilogy, John Dos Passos pursued a concurrent career as a visual artist.

The Bayly Art Museum will show more than 80 watercolors and drawings of landscapes and portraits that speak to the diverse cultures he visited.

The exhibition, “The Art of John Dos Passos,” which runs through Sept. 16, is divided into sections corresponding to his travels. These include works from a trip to Spain immediately after his discharge from the U.S. Army in 1920, his return to Paris and trips to Morocco in the mid-1920s and to Mexico from 1926 to 1934.

Also on view will be paintings he exhibited in New York City in the 1920s chronicling his travels as a social revolutionary throughout the Americas, Europe and the Middle East. A number of the watercolors he made during these trips and while living in New York are shown as cover art, and, as in the case of the Orient Express, as illustrations in his books. Included in the exhibition are Dos Passos’s designs for productions presented by the New Playwrights Theater in New York, a proletarian dramatist group.

Special collections holds the papers of Dos Passos.

“The Art of John Dos Passos” was organized by International Arts & Artists in conjunction with the Dos Passos estate. Its presentation at the Bayly, open to the public without charge Tuesday through Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m, is supported in part by the Museum’s Volunteer Board. For more about the exhibit and the museum, visit the Web site at www.virginia.edu/~bayly.