The Ohio Valley Regional Arts Council and Kent State East Liverpool will host a reception from 5 - 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 28 at the Mary Patterson Gallery to showcase the gallery’s current exhibit: “A Tribute to Einar: Paintings of Roy Nedreberg, Jr.”Roy Nedreberg Jr. was born in Zanesville, Ohio on September 3, 1955. After graduating from Zanesville High School in 1975, he attended Bowling Green University for a year before joining the U.S. Army. He served in the 101st Airborne at Fort Bragg and in Germany.
After military service, Nedreberg enrolled in Kent State East Liverpool and took every art class offered before going to the Kent campus to continue his studies. In the mid- 1980s he moved to San Francisco, but just as he began to fit into the art scene there, his grandmother died, and Roy came back East to take care of his grandfather.
In the fall of 1991 Nedreberg set up a studio in downtown Jamestown, N.Y., where he sold paintings and worked odd jobs. During the last 15 years of his life, he devoted his time almost exclusively to painting.
Because he lived from the sale of his art and because he never sold a painting unless he really needed the money, Nedreberg was always in a precarious financial position. As a result, he never had health insurance. He suffered from indigestion and acid-reflux for years but didn’t go to a doctor about his stomach problems until it was too late. In the end, those conditions caused esophageal cancer, which took his life on February 13, 2008.
The exhibit runs from Aug. 25 through Sept. 26. Gallery hours are Monday, Wednesday and Friday 12 noon —2 p.m. and Thursdays 5 – 7 p.m. The gallery is located on the second floor of Mary Patterson building at 213 East Fourth Street, East Liverpool. Handicapped access is available on the east side of the building.
