Historian returns to painting

   

"Goose Wing,'' by Abbott Gleason, one of the works of the retired Brown University history professor recently shown at  Bank Rhode Island Turk's Head Gallery,  in Providence. Mr. Gleason moved full time into painting about a decade ago, when he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

In doing so, he was returning to a great passion of  his youth -- a passion in part fueled by the example of his mother, a professional artist. Another early passion was jazz, which he used to perform himself as an amateur musician and that can often  be heard in the 19th Century house he shares with his wife, Sarah, on College Hill in Providence.