By Ed Adamczyk
In artist extraordinaire Augustus Raphael Beck (1858-1947), Niagara County had a prolific and internationally renowned master of early 20th century art.
Born in Pennsylvania and educated in Europe before settling for a lifetime on Willow Street in Lockport, Beck was a multimedia practitioner in oils, watercolors, massive murals, stained glass and a staggering array of other applications.
Beginning Sunday, the Kenan Center in Lockport will launch “Raphael Beck Revisited”, a gallery show of about 50 Beck pieces from a variety of donors, its first all-Beck presentation since 1981.
Anyone who’s spent any time in Lockport is likely familiar with his most enduring work, the 20- by 13-foot mural “The Opening of the Erie Canal” (which is too large to fit in the Kenan show), wherein DeWitt Clinton waves his arm as the old Lockport locks open, Old Glory snaps in the breeze and circa-1825 men and women stare in amazement.
Originally painted for the cavernous lobby of the Lockport Exchange Bank, it was moved to Lockport High School when the bank’s ceilings were refitted and now is on display at the Erie Canal Discovery Center.
If you’ve seen it, you’ve seen only one example of the abundant Beck collection.
“He was probably among the most notable people to come out of Lockport,” Kenan Center marketing director Elaine Harrigan said. “Among the artists of the 20th century, he is considered a great American painter, but there is also the spread of his work.”
The paintings, the murals, even his emblems for the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo — two women in a handshake, forming North and South America — and the two world’s fairs that followed it, in 1903 and 1905, gave Beck a widespread influence in the business of branding images, what we would call commercial art. With steady production and the remarkable array of prints, reprints and the like, the turn-of-the-century question, Harrigan said, “was who didn’t have a Raphael Beck in his home.”
The Kenan exhibition, coordinated by volunteers Selena Truax Morello and Ilania Stangler, includes a representative assortment of Beck’s output in different media and of different sizes. Herein lies the significance of Lockport’s famous native son (who is buried in nearby Greenwood Cemetery; his daughter and granddaughter still reside here) and of the Kenan show: Those artists who aspire to having their work everywhere can look to him as an inspiration.
There are still lifes, etchings, landscapes and portraiture in his resume, as well as the design of the “corporate seal” of the Natural Food Company of Niagara Falls, the last portrait of President William McKinley — started before his sudden demise — and prominent murals galore (including the six in the still-functioning North Park Theater in Buffalo, painted in 1920). Throughout his career, Beck maintained a studio in the Calumet Building on Chippewa Street in Buffalo as well as in Lockport, where he offered painting lessons until a year before his death.
As a study in art or in Niagara County history, the solo show highlights the work of a man who brought art into the new century, brought examples of fine art to homes heretofore unfamiliar with the genre and crossed lines so that the art world could serve, and be served, by commerce and industry. That he spent his most productive 60 years in Lockport merely adds to the excitement.
Ed Adamczyk is a freelance writer from Kenmore.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: “Raphael Beck Revisited”
WHERE: Kenan Center, 433 Locust St., Lockport
WHEN: An opening reception will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday, with the exhibit running through March 1
MORE INFORMATION: Call 433-2617
