Rob Moore seemed to make it to every exhibition opening that he was invited to. By all accounts big-hearted, motivating and enthralling, Moore was a fixture in the Boston art scene from the late 1960s through to his death at 55 from AIDS-related complications on New Year’s Eve, 1992. A painter with a decisive eye and self-sure style, he worked as a teacher at MassArt for 24 years, influencing, mentoring and encouraging his students with limitless honesty and generosity.
Around the 30th anniversary of Moore’s death, one of his former students, John Guthrie, began preparations for a retrospective at Boston’s Gallery VERY — which ran from May to mid-June 2024 — the first exhibition of Moore’s work since a posthumous showing at MassArt a year after his death.
Beginning in earnest at the end of 2023, Guthrie reached out to friends and former students of Moore and collectors of his work to gather pieces, memorabilia, stories and as much biographical information as he could. It turned out to be an education not only in Moore’s life, but in the history of Boston’s art community.
“Everyone has a Rob Moore story,” said Guthrie. “I would talk to someone, and they’d give me the name of someone else. It really went from there.”
What he and VERY’s assistant director, Stace Brandt, have been able to compile is considerable. The Rob Moore Project’s sleek website presents the painter’s work across his career, from his college yearbook cover to his late period; ephemera such as a t-shirt design, advertisements, posters for exhibits and classroom notes; along with a substantial photographic catalogue detailing Moore, his friends, pupils and collaborators — which included the likes of David Sipress, Lisa Houck and Felice Regan — and late-century academic life at the college itself.
Most moving is a “Memories” page where those who knew Moore can leave testimonials to him as an artist and as a man. Included here are some of the ongoing interviews Guthrie has conducted, a part of the project that is as difficult as it is joyful. “For a lot of them, [Moore’s death] was still very emotional and raw,” he said of the process.