Enhance Your Vance Collection at the Old Art Building in Leland

A lifetime collection of David Vance paintings will be featured at a special showing titled “Enhance Your Vance Collection” on August 29, 30, 31 at the Old Art Building in Leland. The paintings have been bequeathed to the Leelanau Community Cultural Center by the heirs of the David Vance family with all proceeds to benefit art programs and operations. They have requested that his artwork be priced to sell to attract buyers to acquire several pieces.

See the exhibit online at the Old Art Building website.

Born and educated in Detroit, David Vance (1926-2007) earned a BA degree from the University of Michigan majoring in Art History and a MA degree from New York University. While at the Museum of Modern Art he planned and directed the first computerization of a major museum catalog. Together with Robert Chenhall, David co-authored Museum Collections and Today’s Computers (1988). He moved back to Michigan in 1986 after a position at SUNY/Centereach and resumed his painting career. David attended the Michigan State Summer Art School at the Old Art Building in 1947 and was also part of the “MSU Artists Celebrating Past and Present” exhibit in September 2007. His artwork was also exhibited many times in the LCCC annual benefit “Art Leelanau”.

Bright, intense colors characterize his works; with a strong emphasis on abstraction, especially those painted upon his return to the Little Traverse Lake area. David Vance painted portraiture and landscapes, succeeding in melding his familiar Michigan surroundings with the experimental style of New York color-field and hard-edge art movements. His art reveals the influence of his contemporaries Charles Sheeler, Stuart Davis, Jacob Lawrence, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Motherwell and Barnett Newman.

The exhibit and sales will begin at 4 pm on Saturday, August 29.