OCEAN CITY — The Art League of Ocean City invites the public to a trio of free in-person First Friday art openings on Aug. 6 from 5-7 p.m. The Ocean City Center for the Arts on 94th Street bayside opens four new shows, with exhibitions also taking place at the Princess Royale Oceanfront and Coffee Beanery.
A retrospective of Ed Challenger’s art career opens in the Thaler Gallery at the arts center showing a variety of his work over the years. Born in 1932 in Newcastle, Del., he served in the United States Navy before attending the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts). His varied commercial art career saw him work as a freelance commercial artist, art director, and illustrator for various Pennsylvania ad agencies and companies.
Challenger became a self-employed sculptor at age 41, and for the next 20 years exhibited his work all over the East Coast in juried exhibitions, working in metals, steel, cold cast bronze, and foundry bronze. His work was also sold at the Sales Gallery of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. At age 62 he retired to Bishopville to a life of painting and printmaking. Experimenting with various media has been his forte – oils, pastels, pen and ink, egg tempera, printmaking – both in realism and abstraction.
Carol Gentes of Selbyville, Del. is an artist, muralist, photographer, and former interior decorator. She fills Studio E at the Arts Center in August with paintings made from the precise placement of dots on textured paper as well as her nature photography. Birds, insects, and animals are her inspiration and recurring themes in her art.
Jill Glassman of Ocean Pines, a former resident of Annapolis, moved to the Eastern Shore in 2003 where she is an active member of the Mid-Atlantic Plein Air Painters Assn., Plein Air Painters of the Chesapeake Bay, the Art League of Ocean City, the Academy Art Museum, and a juried member of the Maryland Pastel Society and the Pastel Society of America. Her most recent awards include first place in the 2019 Plein Air Easton Quick Draw.
Helen Prah of Ocean City is the art center’s artisan for August. Prah wire-wraps gemstones in sterling silver and also creates wax-coated pine needle baskets inspired by her time in the Southwest, using waxed thread from Brazil and stone centers from Arizona, then coating her creations in natural beeswax.
The 21tst Annual Beverly Bassford Juried Show continues in The Galleria until mid-August, when the “Artists Paint OC” plein air exhibits opens on Aug. 14.
The First Friday receptions continue in other points in north Ocean City. The main lobby gallery at the Princess Royale Oceanfront, 9100 Coastal Hwy. opens an exhibit entitled “Memories of Ocean City Vacation” by painter Leo Kahl of Ocean View, Del. Kahl senses and documents the art hidden within everyday lives. Proficient in multiple mediums, he primarily uses watercolor to express his reactions to mood-rich scenes.
A second satellite gallery on 94th St. is located less than a block from the Arts Center at the Coffee Beanery and features the work of Susan Hunsberger who composes her work as a puzzle of shapes. Her focus is mixed media using primarily acrylic and fabric in the co-existence of design and form.
Refreshments at the Arts Center are sponsored by PKS Investments. All shows will be on display until August 28. More information is available at www.ArtLeagueofOceanCity.org or by calling 410-524-9433.