The Selby Gallery at Ringling College of Art and Design begins its 2014-2015 season with a special exhibit featuring selections from the life of Frank Rampolla, the acclaimed artist who spent his last and most productive years in Florida, including eight teaching at Ringling College of Art and Design, during which he created much of the work on display now. Rampolla died tragically young, at the age of 40. Now, more than 40 years later, Selby Gallery announces The Return of Frank Rampolla.

A prolific and politically charged artist, Rampolla’s work startles and challenges, reflecting the tumultuous world of the 1960s, wracked with social and political upheaval and violence, through a humanist lens that places the flesh-and-blood form, in all its squalid glory, at the fore.

“When [Rampolla] first came to Sarasota, he loved to go out to the beach and paint, but after the assassination of JFK and the Vietnam War his work really changed,” said Laura Avery, assistant director at the Selby Gallery. “Even though he was known for his affable, sunny personality, there was a very passionate dark side that related to showing the things that people do to each other.”

Featuring 36 pieces from various collections across the state, The Return of Frank Rampolla gives gallery guests not only the finished product, but also a peek at the developing style of this artist through his sketchbooks, prints and early work in sculpture.

But Rampolla’s massive paintings have to be the main draw. Grand in scale and richly colored, Rampolla captures a humanity trapped somewhere between man and beast, writhing and wriggling within confines both existential and self-imposed. His subjects cut tragic and fallen figures, all sunken eyes and twisted mouths, with an energy barely contained by their biological prison. Bodies intertwine in great masses of colorful flesh, often contrasting the geometric order represented in the background.

It’s art that’s pleasing if not always “pretty,” rewarding if not always easy.

The exhibition is noteworthy not only for its quality, which one has come to expect from Selby, but as one of the final shows designed by former Selby Gallery director Kevin Dean, a fellow artist and something of a kindred spirit to Rampolla, according to friends, who fought for the exhibit but passed only months ago, before it could be completed.

“Frank Rampolla’s approach was in line with Kevin’s interests in the political and humanism,” said Avery. “He and Rampolla had a real connection in the way that they approached teaching and where their art came from. Kevin was a little bit more conceptually oriented, but they had that same idea of humanism and the passion that accompanied that and exploring people, just in different ways.”

This season has been dedicated to Dean’s memory.

The Return of Frank Rampolla runs in the Selby Gallery until Aug. 8.