An Opening Reception is planned for 4 to 6 p.m. Oct. 4. Violet Baxter will present a gallery talk at 5 p.m. in the Museum. The exhibit will remain on display in the University Museum through Nov. 17.

In 1983, Baxter rented a studio at 41 Union Square West -- where Isabel Bishop once had a studio -- and began recording the passing parade on 17th Street beneath her window. This exhibition includes 45 oils, watercolors and pastels that capture the changing moods and seasons of an historic New York neighborhood: holiday celebrations, market views, nightlife, and crowds of New Yorkers. Although realistically rendered, her highly structured compositions reflect her early training as an Abstract Expressionist painter.

The critic Jed Perl wrote: "What's haunting about the 'Union Square Variations' is the absence of contrivance. Baxter just goes deeper and deeper into her motif. In a couple of pastels a leap is taken from earnest documentary into intoxication."

Baxter studied art at Hunter College, The Cooper Union, Columbia University and Pratt Graphic Art Center. She has exhibited regularly in New York since the early 1960s.