This winter, the AVA Gallery and Art Center will feature the remarkable artwork of Lawrence J. Nowlan Jr. who died unexpectedly three years ago leaving not only his young family of three behind but pieces of artwork that earned him national and international fame.
The memorial exhibition, which runs from now to March 31, is called “Inner Soul: The Sculptural Work of Lawrence J. Nowlan Jr.,” and features some of the artist’s best-known works.
This is the first time many of these pieces — including a range of his finished sculptures and paintings; clay and plaster models; and tools — have been outside his studio and on public display, according to wife, Heather.
“Larry was a master at portraying the human form in a way that is not only captivating to the eye, but inspiring to the soul,” said Heather. “His passions for art, music, sports, and family came through strongly through his artwork. This honest and true representation of his passions ignited a certain spirit and energy in others. We hope the pieces on display at AVA allow people to gain a sense of who Larry was and how his soul speaks in his art.”
Nowlan was an artist-in-residence at Saint-Gaudens for five summers from 1995-1997 and 2001 to 2002 where he studied portrait sculpture and bas-relief. This was also the place that he met his future wife, Heather Wiley, an intern with the Student Conservation Association.
They married in 2003 and eventually had two children, a daughter, Monet, and a son, Teelin.
The relief sculptures Nowlan did of his two children are among his wife’s favorites.
“Larry was an incredibly devoted father who brought each of the children into his Windsor studio for hours at a time,” said Heather. “He allowed them the freedom to explore different mediums, use his tools and armatures and ‘help’ him on different projects he was working on at the time.”