The First Art Exhibition in Knauer Gallery

Richard Blake’s sculptures are unique for the fact that he focuses on strong, complex and introspective women from the third world and presents them as a metaphor for the human condition. His figures are on display along with works by other members of the University’s art faculty in the first exhibit to be installed in the new performing and visual arts center. The Knauer Gallery exhibition will run from January 15 to March 30 and is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Mondays through Fridays.

Blake first studied art at the age of nine when he enrolled at the Samuel Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia to study drawing and painting. At 15, he became totally immersed in all facets of sculptural expression and later graduated from the Tyler School of Fine Arts. His work has been included in over 40 international and national exhibitions and has been honored by some of the country’s oldest and most venerated art institutions, including the National Sculpture Society and the National Academy of Design.

Before joining West Chester’s art department in 1975, he had taught at the Philadelphia College of Art and the Tyler School. Since then, he also has been a guest lecturer at the National Sculpture Society, the Hussian School of Art and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and most recently, at the Pennslvania Academy of Fine Arts.

His sculptures are represented in many private collections, including a number of public commissions: the Martin Luther King Memorial “Fresno Peace Gardens” in California; the Sumitomo Electronic Corporation in New York; Temple University, the Milton Hershey Museum and School and the Brookgreen Sculpture Gardens in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina.