Tom Judd - Home on the Range

March 16, 2016 – Stremmel Gallery is pleased to present Home on the Range, an exhibition of recent work by Philadelphia based artist Tom Judd, on view from March 17 – April 16, 2016. The artist reception will be held Thursday, March 17, 2016 from 5:00-7:00 p.m. Both the exhibition and reception are free to the public.

Tom Judd grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, which he refers to as “the heart of the ‘Myth of the Frontier’”. His current body of work focuses on the American notion of Manifest Destiny, the obsession with the myth surrounding America’s history and his love of the epic American landscape. The work challenges the way that the history of the west, “the invented myth”, is perceived as a result of advertising, film and television, while also embracing the aesthetic of those mediums.

Judd attended the University of Utah from 1970 to 1972 when he departed on a six-month leave of absence to travel in Europe. He returned in 1973 to attend the Philadelphia College of Art where he studied with Rafael Ferrer, Bob Kulicke, and Larry Day, graduating with a BFA in painting in 1975.

Judd first exhibited his art work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1979, where at 25 he was included in a survey show entitled "Contemporary Drawing: Philadelphia," curated by Ann Percy and Frank Goodyear. The museum purchased a work from that exhibit for their permanent collection.

Judd went on to exhibit his work in distinguished commercial galleries beginning with his first solo exhibit at Eric Makler Gallery in Philadelphia in 1980. Judd was soon recognized in New York City, including Monique Knowlton and Coe Kerr Gallery. In 1984 he was given a solo exhibit at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and had work purchased for their permanent collection. In 1990, Judd had a ten-year retrospect at the Philadelphia Art Alliance. The show also traveled to the Salt Lake Art Center the following year. In 2009, Judd joined forces with curator and gallery owner Allen Sheppard to produce "Evidence of a Collected Past". This exhibition was staged at the Globe Dye Works - an alternative art space in Philadelphia - and consisted of a 20-year retrospective of Judd's works.