Through the 1960s and 1970s, Shirley Gorelick (b. 1924, Brooklyn; d. 2000, Washington, DC) developed a bold realist style that combined vigorous brushwork, heightened shadows, and touches of vivid patterns to make every figure pulsate with life. Her expressive paintings are also engaging portraits of her vibrant circle of friends.

Gorelick became involved with artist-run women’s cooperative galleries in New York in the early 1970s, including Central Hall Artists Gallery in Port Washington, New York, and SOHO20 Gallery in New York City. Part of a circle of New York-based figure painters, Gorelick caught the eye of critics who praised her exhibitions. Yet historians writing about New York art of the period typically focused on the rise of Pop art, Minimalism, and conceptual art and omitted Gorelick and other progressive realist artists.

This exhibition centers on three large-scale paintings by Gorelick in NMWA’s collection, which are exhibited together for the first time. These canvases include the first work in the artist’s “Three Graces” series; a triple portrait of Gorelick’s friend and fellow social activist Libby Dickerson; and a work depicting longtime family friends Gunny and Lee Benson, a couple in late middle age. The exhibition also features more than 30 related paintings, drawings, and prints that further illuminate Gorelick’s practice and the sitters she portrayed in NMWA’s works.