The Massachusetts Review is one of the nation’s leading literary magazines, distinctive in joining highest-level artistic concerns with pressing public issues. Throughout its 50 year history, MR has been noted for its involvement with the visual as well as the literary arts. The cover has provided desirable exhibition space for both established and rising painters and photographers. Covers have featured many artists over the years, where the breadth and variety are evident: Photographs by Walker Evans, Wendy Snyder MacNeil, and Jerome Liebling; Prints by Leonard Baskin, Li Hua and Fred Becker; Works on paper by Richard Yarde and Laylah Ali.
Its Winter 2008 issue featured a cover and special insert by Welsh artist Bethan Huws, in collaboration with the University Gallery.
The exhibition has original art from over 30 Massachusetts Review covers selected from each decade, focusing on photography and works-on-paper. There is also a display of covers from every issue, all five decades, as a sort of timeline. Historical ephemera, letters, broadsides, and off-prints are showcased at the UMass W.E.B. Dubois Library in conjunction with the University Gallery exhibition.
Curators of this exhibition are MR art editors, Christin Couture, Oriole Farb Feshbach, and MR art director, Pamela Glaven.
Retired New York Times art critic, Grace Glueck, has written an essay for the brochure
