The Sorman Archive: Expanding Symmetry

Although the FWMoA began collecting artwork by Steven Sorman in 1985, it wasn’t until nearly 20 years later that the museum’s Sorman collection blossomed, thanks to gifts from local collectors and strategic purchases. Sorman’s work has been a favorite of President and CEO Charles A. Shepard III since he encountered it as a graduate student while helping organize the now-famous 1984 exhibit The Modern Art of the Print at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

Shepard’s relationship with Sorman continued at his first directorship at the University of Maine Museum of Art, where his first purchase for the collection was a Sorman work. Over the next 20 years, Shepard purchased Sorman’s work at each museum he directed, and he continued to do so after taking the helm at FWMoA in 2003.

In late 2013, FWMoA began laying the groundwork for this gift, resulting in the largest acquisition of Sorman’s art by any institution in the world. In June of 2014, Sorman donated more than 230 prints and paintings from 1972-2014, with more gifts promised as the artist continues to create work.

This exhibition includes selections from FWMoA’s Steven Sorman Archives and was curated by President and Chief Curator, Charles Shepard, with support from the Edward D. and Ione Auer Foundation.