“The Last Pitcher Show” arrives at Washington gallery
World West Galleries on North Main Street in Washington will host an exhibit of the works of the late Charlie Pitcher, including “Charlie’s Wagon” shown here. An opening reception will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday.
“Rigging of No. 6,” by Charlie Pitcher
“Greeting the Day,” by Charlie Pitcher
“Valkyries” by Charlie Pitcher is included in the exhibit.
Charlie Pitcher, right, with fellow artist Ray Forquer
Upon receiving Artist of the Year honors from the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts in 1987, Charlie Pitcher outlined his workmanlike habits.
“I paint every day,” he said. “I get up around 6:30 (a.m.) and take a walk. I walk three miles a day. We go down to Mingo Creek Park in Washington County.”
Those walks through Mingo Creek, and other locations in the region, yielded scores of memorable landscape paintings that evoke the beauty and placidity of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s rural expanses and deep woods. The work of Pitcher, a Bethel Park resident who died in 2009 at age 82, is being showcased in the exhibit “The Last Pitcher Show” at World West Galleries on North Main Street in Washington. An opening reception will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday.
Peter West, proprietor of World West Galleries, looked upon Pitcher as a mentor, and their friendship dated back to the late 1970s when they were both members of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh.
“To me, his work had a timeless quality to it,” West said. Pitcher started his career in the 1950s experimenting in a lot of different styles, and worked in oils, but then a lung condition led him to switch to watercolors. From there, his work took on what West describes as a “Zen-like quality” that bears some resemblance to the renowned Pennsylvania artist Andrew Wyeth, who also died in 2009.
“He found great solitude in the woods, and became a great fan of the landscape in this area,” West said.
While the preponderance of the works in “The Last Pitcher Show” are of Pitcher’s landscapes, there are some idiosyncratic pieces represented, such as a scene inside a Pittsburgh nightspot that Pitcher created for a friend in 1960, and a 1980s-era rendering of the Pittsburgh skyline, with a corner of Three Rivers Stadium visible.
Pitcher was one of a handful of artists in the Pittsburgh region who was able to make a living on a full-time basis from art, West said, and was among the most highly regarded. After graduating from Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pitcher tried his luck as a commercial artist in Philadelphia to no avail. That was followed by stints as an art teacher in Pittsburgh Public Schools and as a director of education at the Buhl Planetarium. He eventually opened his own shop, the Charles Pitcher Gallery, in Shadyside.
Pitcher said in 1987 he wanted to present landscapes in tight focus, which would increase the viewer’s awareness of all the elements within a frame. He explained, “I think I’ve taken this to where it’s almost more than is needed, more than nature actually placed there. I’m trying to simplify this idea and still maintain the idea.”
And despite the show’s title, a take-off on the Larry McMurtry novel “The Last Picture Show” and the 1971 movie based on that novel, West said “The Last Pitcher Show” is probably not the last we will see of Pitcher’s work.
“He was a most beloved artist,” West said.