Bill Murphy: Waterfront Tales 1975-2025

Exhibition on view through January 18, 2026

Bill Murphy was born on Staten Island in 1952.  He recalls, “My mother tells me I drew a lot as a small child. My first real memory of drawing was in kindergarten, painting a picture of Zorro, a popular TV character at the time.  A profound early influence on my way of thinking was the comic books of the 1960s, in particular the work of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, both drawing for Marvel Comics.  Later, the psychedelic poster art of the Fillmore East would form my early sense of design.”

The work in this exhibition dates from only shortly thereafter in 1975, and spans 50 years of Murphy’s explorations of the local waterfront.  His affinity for New York’s gritty harbor and his penchant for printmaking put Murphy in orbit with John A. Noble, who at that point was at the end of his life and career.  In retrospect, after five decades, Murphy’s body of work parallels Noble’s in its preservation of vestiges of New York City and its waterways which are forever changing with time, tides, and development.

To talk with Murphy, one immediately picks up on his sincerity and authenticity, not only as an artist, but as a native New Yorker of the Baby Boomer generation.  In curating this exhibition, his stories about each piece of art brought to life a recent, but often entirely altered past, without wistfulness, but rather with a plain-spoken frankness that made fleeting moments and places feel as present as the current moment.  We asked him to write them down, and thus this exhibition is as much a collection of waterfront tales as it is a retrospective of art. 

Murphy is considered one of Staten Island’s most renowned artists.  He received his MFA from Vermont College, and also studied at the Art Students League of New York and the Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. He was a Professor of Visual Arts at Wagner College from 1984 through 2019, and was Chairperson of the Art Department from 1998 to 2003.  He currently teaches drawing at the Art Students League of New York. 

Save the date for an Artist’s Talk with Bill Murphy on Sunday, September 14, 2025, 2 PM!

Selection from the exhibition

Curated by Ciro Galeno, Jr. and Megan Beck, with exhibition design by Michael McWeeney

Special thanks to Kathy Cracchiolo

This exhibition was made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; and by a grant from the Lily Auchincloss Foundation.