From the South Orange Department of Recreation and Cultural Affairs:
The Pierro Gallery at The Baird Community Center is proud to present Judy Targan: A Life in Art, a major retrospective celebrating the extraordinary eight-decade career of South Orange artist Judy Targan. The exhibition opens with a public reception on Wednesday, September 23, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
The exhibition will remain on view through November 8 and will serve as the Pierro Gallery’s featured exhibition during this year’s SOMA Studio Tour, an especially meaningful distinction given that Judy was one of the founders of the beloved community tradition.
Spanning work from the 1940s through the present day, A Life in Art traces Targan’s artistic evolution from early drawings and paintings created as a student at New York City’s progressive Walden School through children’s room murals, limited-edition relief prints, inkless intaglio works, and her current Landscapes/Landshapes
Remarkably, Judy continues to create new work today in her South Orange studio. She will celebrate her 95th birthday on October 13, during the run of the exhibition, making the retrospective an especially fitting celebration of both her art and her extraordinary life.
“It is my great honor to curate and host this exhibition for Judy here at the Pierro Gallery,” said Blake Smith, Gallery Manager and Head Curator. “Judy is an incredibly talented artist, but she is also someone who has given so much of herself to this community. She is truly one of my favorite people, and I feel incredibly lucky to know her. Being able to celebrate her life, her work, and eight decades of creativity here at the Pierro—and to do it as she turns 95—is something I will always cherish.”
Born and raised in New York City, Targan has devoted her life to art and community. Her work has been exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions and is represented in hospitals, museums, colleges, corporate collections, and private collections throughout the country. She has completed numerous commissions and created tributes for nonprofit organizations and religious institutions, including a boxed set of notecards for UNICEF.
Targan is listed in Who’s Who in American Art and Who’s Who of American Women. Beyond her studio practice, she served for 27 years as a docent at the Newark Museum of Art and contributed to the Visiting Committee of the Smith College Museum of Art as well as the Art Committee of the Montclair Art Museum.
A graduate of Smith College, Class of 1953, Targan later continued her studies in graduate studio art classes at Rutgers-Newark.
A Life in Art is both a celebration of an individual artist and a tribute to the creative spirit that has shaped South Orange’s cultural community for generations. The exhibition offers visitors an opportunity to experience the remarkable breadth of Targan’s work while reflecting on the ways an artist’s creative life can continue to evolve, inspire, and contribute to a community across generations.
Exhibition Details
Exhibition: Judy Targan: A Life in Art
Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 23, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: September 23–November 8
Location: Pierro Gallery at The Baird Community Center
Address: 5 Mead Street, South Orange, NJ
The exhibition is free and open to the public.
