Memorial Art Gallery: An Introduction to the Collection

One of the country's finest regional art collections, yet little known outside of western New York, the University of Rochester's Memorial Art Gallery is home to such diverse works as Thomas Hart Benton's raucous Boomtown and a relaxed, gilded Chinese Bodhisattva dating from the 13th century. This handsome catalogue, which celebrates the gallery's 75th anniversary, is a smorgasbord of treats, ranging from a mosaic of a Roman goddess excavated at Antioch, to a medieval French polychromed Doubting Thomas , to abstract sculpture by Beverly Pepper and Alexander Calder. Works by El Greco, Van Dyck, Eakins, Degas and Rodin are standouts, although most of the 316 illustrations are in black and white. The mini-essay accompanying Jean-Francois Millet's pastel drawing of a noble laborer notes, ``The peasant's earth-tone clothing . . . and potato-shaped nose ally him with the clumps of soil beneath him.'' All the commentaries are in this veindown-to-earth, surprising and attentive to detail. (Mar.)