Each time I bring my cocker spaniel to the vet’s office I am mesmerized by an MFA poster that shows a young woman wearing a plaid flannel bathrobe sitting with an Irish setter at her feet that hangs in the waiting room. It, I discovered, is the work of Scott Prior whose combined technical ability and homespun subject matter I find uniquely appealing. Unfortunately, I’ve learned how infrequently the Northampton, Massachusetts-based Prior’s work is shown beyond local galleries. So, when I heard that Cape Cod’s Cahoon Museum of American Art had scheduled a Prior 5-decade retrospective for early spring 2021, I knew I had to make the trip. The Cahoon Museum was once the home of Cape Cod folk artists, Martha and Ralph Cahoon. It is easy to imagine that the well-maintained rooms once served as a living space, a fact that both enhanced and restricted appreciation of the 35 Prior paintings on display. Prior’s depiction of domestic
Random musings on art