A no-show for mock Hockney

THE good news is that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s much-anticipated “David Hockney Portraits” show has finished its run at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and made it to Wilshire Boulevard. The bad news is that, barring a rash act of philanthropy, another remarkable Massachusetts portrait show won’t be making the trip.

“Hackneyed Portraits: It Looks Just Like Her!” was organized by the Boston-based Museum of Bad Art, which drew from its permanent collection of below-par art. The show features 27 portraits of poor quality, acquired from garage sales, trash bins, thrift shops and other such sites.

The title of the Hockney exhibition “invited our tribute,” confesses Louise Sacco, MOBA’s permanent acting interim executive director.

Like most exhibitions staged by the 13-year-old, all-volunteer MOBA, the show is hanging in the basement lobby of the Dedham Community Theater in the Boston suburb of Dedham, just outside the men’s room. No further stops are planned. However, says Sacco, “We would love to follow the Hockney show all around the country.”

Works in the “hackneyed” show include “Sid’s Birthday,” an acrylic on canvas (signed RW) that was found at a thrift store in Boston’s Roslindale neighborhood. The artist, MOBA’s curator notes, “captures the wry smile on the lips, the slight weariness behind the eyes and the hint of a lump in the long throat, as, at the pinnacle of the celebration, the heat and light of 40 candles give Sid pause to contemplate his mortality.”

More information is at www.museumofbadart.org.

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Christopher Reynolds