Artist Ron Donoughe's Works on Display

Oct 21, 2021

'Brownsville to Braddock: Paintings of the Monongahela Valley' will be in Manderino Library Nov. 8- Dec. 3.

artist ron donoughe

Pittsburgh artist Ron Donoughe finishes a painting of the caboose at the California Public Library in 2019.

An art exhibition postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic is slated to open at California University of Pennsylvania this fall.

“Brownsville to Braddock: Paintings of the Monongahela Valley,” featuring Pittsburgh artist Ron Donoughe, will be on display on the third floor of Manderino Library from Nov. 8 through Dec. 3. Admission to the exhibition is free and open to the public.

Donoughe will give a free gallery talk at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 4, followed by a reception with the artist at 6:30 p.m.

For regular library hours, visit library.calu.edu. Masks are required inside public spaces at Cal U.

Donoughe is known for his realistic landscapes, painted outdoors in the plein air style. His work captures details of towns such as Brownsville, California, Charleroi, Monessen, Monongahela, Clairton, Duquesne, McKeesport and Braddock, as well as the Mon River itself.

While on campus Nov. 4, Donoughe is expected to meet with art students, who will paint, draw and make monotypes outdoors.

At 3 p.m., students will assemble their works in the painting studio, located in Vulcan Hall, for an exhibition and sale of the campus scenes completed that day. The exhibition also will include drawings and paintings of landscape scenes from campus and architectural drawings of Old Main completed earlier this fall.

The campus community is invited to the sale and exhibition, which will end just before Donoughe’s talk at 4:30 p.m. in Manderino Library.

The artist also will speak to students in Dr. Christina Fisanick’s digital storytelling class at 2 p.m. Nov. 4.

“I’d like him to talk to my class about the stories people tell him as he’s painting,” said Fisanick, a professor of English, co-director of the Northern Appalachian Network at Cal U, and coordinator of Donoughe’s visit to campus.

“People think of mountains or lakes or castles but Ron is out there painting a humble house in Homestead or painting the ruins of a steel mill in Rankin. He focuses on the everyday parts of our visual landscape.

“This is another way for me to reinforce the idea that the stories of everyday people and the history of this region are stories worth capturing, either orally or visually. He tells a story in his paintings.”

The exhibition is co-sponsored by the College of Education and Liberal Arts, the Mon River Towns Program, the National Road Heritage Corridor, Touchstone Center for Crafts, and Rivers of Steel.