The Rehoboth Art League opened its 84th annual members exhibition in July 2022 with work by more than 80 artists across painting, sculpture, photography and mixed media.
The juried presentation was accompanied by three smaller exhibitions, creating a broad view of current regional practice and the organisation’s historical collection.
Members working across media
The annual exhibition included pastel, watercolour, acrylic and oil painting, alongside metal and wood sculpture, photography and mixed-media work.
Artist and illustrator David M. Brinley judged the awards and led a public discussion explaining his decisions and identifying other notable pieces.
Water, still life and works from the collection
Donna M. Finley’s solo exhibition Hidden Waters used pastel to depict secluded waterways across the Delmarva Peninsula. Her scenes focused on places overlooked by residents and visitors, especially areas where trees formed boundaries around quiet water.
In the historic Peter Marsh Homestead, Melissa Husted-Sherman presented Still, a group of still-life paintings concerned with how an image changes during the painting process. Their relatively intimate scale encouraged close examination.
A fourth display selected work from the Rehoboth Art League’s permanent collection, including pieces rarely shown publicly. The collection contained more than 900 objects and preserved work by Delaware artists involved in the organisation’s formation in 1938.
Bringing these exhibitions together connected current members with older regional traditions. The annual show demonstrated the range of the contemporary membership, while the collection display placed that activity within more than eight decades of institutional history.