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Liquid Light
January 27 - April 15, 2012
This exhibition showcases recently acquired watercolors by East Tennessee artists Thomas Campbell, Charles Krutch, George
Galloway, Walter Stevens, Carl Sublett, Richard Clarke, Whitney Leland, and Jered Sprecher, and presents them in the
larger context of the museum’s watercolor collection alongside works by Charles Burchfield, Janet Fish, and other
internationally known artists. Organized by the KMA.
All art notes in red are courtesy of Stephen Wicks, Barbara W. and Bernard E. Bernstein Curator, KMA
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ALICE BABER (American, 1928 - 1982)
Alice Baber, The Mesa in the Dream of the Jaguar, 1981, Watercolor on paper
Baber is known for her vibrant abstract watercolors in which she creates pools of brilliant color and allows them to interact as they
dry. Her works were inspired by Native American mythology, and the sun-drenched landscape surrounding her Florida home.
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-alice-baber-12443
Archives of American Art / Oral History interview with Alice Baber, 1973 May 24 conducted by Paul Cummings / interview
transcript & link to Alice Baber papers, 1934-1983.
http://art.state.gov/artistdetail.aspx?id=103444 Art in Embassies / U.S. Department of State
www.niagara.edu/cam/art_of_70s/Artists/baber.html Niagara University / Castellani Art Museum > online gallery > Artwork of the
70’s > Alice Baber
Alice Baber began painting at the age of eight, later studying art at Lindenwood College for Women in St. Charles, Missouri and
Indiana University. She also traveled worldwide, studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Fontainebleau, France, and lived in Paris
throughout the late fifties and sixties. She was a member of the March Gallery on Tenth Street in New York City and was art editor
of McCall's magazine. Baber was instrumental in organizing exhibitions of women artists at a time when women were still
struggling to gain prominence in the international art world. Baber's legacy is honored at the Baber Midwest Modern Art Collection
of the Greater Lafayette Museum of Art in Indiana, and the Alice Baber Memorial Art Library in East Hampton, Long Island, New
York. Her paintings are in major museum collections throughout the world. Baber's work is recognized for its luminous, abstract
shapes, particularly in stained canvases filled with clear, radiant color. Her compositions often consist of multiple round or
ovoid shapes.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1357929 JSTOR/ Women’s Art Journal Vol. 3. No. 1., Spring-Summer / Alice Baber 1982 article by
Sylvia Moore
http://www.parisartcenter.com/galleryofpaintings/gallery.htm Gallery of Alice Baber Paintings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Baber Wikipedia online encyclopedia > Alice Baber / artist overview
Book: Women as Mythmakers: Poetry and Visual Art by Twentieth-Century Women By Estella Lauter
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LLOYD BRANSON (American, b.1853 - d.1925)
Lloyd Branson, Untitled (East Tennessee Landscape), 1904, Gouache and watercolor on paper
Enoch Lloyd Branson was one of the most talented and versatile East Tennessee artists of his era. He was the first artist from the
region to receive art training in Paris. Upon the artist’s return in 1878, he established a successful portrait business with
photographer Frank McCrary at 130 Gay Street in downtown Knoxville. While portrait painting was his primary source of income,
he produced many small oils and watercolors of the East Tennessee countryside. In addition to his studio work, Branson was
active as an art teacher, training and inspiring a new generation of local talent including Catherine Wiley and brothers Joseph and
Beauford Delaney.
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FREDERICK BROSEN (American, b.1954)
Frederick Brosen, At the Marais, 1990, Watercolor on paper
Brosen’s precise watercolors describe in great detail historic architectural settings and panoramic vistas from around the world.
Sketching on paper on-site, the artist paints small studies which he later uses to create larger watercolors in the studio.
http://www.hirschlandadler.com/MEDIA/04789.pdf / Hirschl and Adler Modern, NY / A Testament to Time and Place by Lynne
Bahr. Watercolor Magazine, Winter 2009: 42-49. Urban Explorations / American Art Collector, January, 2011.
Press: Frederick Brosen: Recent Watercolors, 2011.
Whether celebrating the streets of Paris or revisiting favorite locations in his native New York, Brosen’s luminous paintings reveal
the city as a place of history as well as new beginnings. From the perspective of urban explorer, Brosen demonstrates a profound
and intimate understanding of the architecture, monuments, and public spaces that unveil their mysteries and unexpected
beauty to those who take the time to look.
Indeed, the act of looking is paramount to Brosen’s technique. After sketching on-site and completing small studies in
watercolor, he begins with a graphite drawing upon which he builds layers of subtle pigment. When the final scene is
realized, it is as much about the city and the place as it is about the forms that comprise it. Brosen’s streets and the structures
lining them are expressions of formal qualities of rhythm, geometry, palette and texture – the bases of our visual delight in
urban architecture.
http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/3aa/3aa179.htm The Urban Cityscapes of Frederick Brosen
New York artist Frederick Brosen creates views of parks, street corners, and bridges; suggesting the lives that have passed
through these city spaces in New York, Paris, and London. The artist's visual insight into urban terrains encompass pathways of
movement, patterns of habit, and rhythms of the seasons.
Brosen (b. 1954) captures the essence of his subject matter by observing the complexities of age, the character of interchanges,
gradations of color, and architectural fine points. With painstaking care and commitment, he sketches a scene, photographs, and
sketches again. Drawing first, then painting, Brosen builds his color by starting with light washes and adding layer after layer of
color, with different colors for each area as dictated by the site. The results are crystalline and sophisticated images that reflect the
special nature of each place through the intimacy of countless details.
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CHARLES EPHRAIM BURCHFIELD (American, b.1893 - d.1967)
Charles Burchfield, Winter Mist and Snow, 1948-58m, Watercolor and chalk on paper
Burchfield is one of America’s most important early 20th century painters. He possessed a keen interest in observing the natural
world, and developed a unique style he used to convey the richness of the landscape around him, even its sounds. Notice how in
this work he adds chalk onto the watercolor pigments to suggest snowfall, and attaches additional sections of watercolor paper to
extend the original scene.
www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-charles-burchfield-12702
Archives of American Art / Oral history interview with Charles Burchfield, 1959 Aug. 19 conducted by John D. Morse / MP 3
sound excerpts & transcript / Speaking of Art: Selections from the Archives of American Art’s Oral History Collection,
1958-2008.
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Charles Burchfield, who is best known for his lyrical evocations of nature in watercolor, often wrote his poetic observations
in free verse on the back of his works. He read one such poem to interviewer John D. Morse in a 1959.
“A stagnant August morning during the drought season, as the pitiless sun mounts into the mid-morning sky, and the insect chorus
commences, the katydids and locusts predominating. Their monotonous, mechanical, brassy rhythms soon pervade the whole air,
combining with heat waves of the sun, and saturating trees and houses and sky.”
http://www.burchfieldpenney.org/?select=about&data=story / Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY
According to Burchfield's friend and colleague Edward Hopper, "The work of Charles Burchfield is most decidedly founded, not on
art, but on life, and the life that he knows and loves best." Watercolorist Charles Ephraim Burchfield (1893-1967) is one of
America's most original artists. Best known for his romantic, often fantastic depictions of nature, Burchfield developed a unique
style of watercolor painting that reflected distinctly American subjects and his profound respect for nature.
www.burchfieldpenney.org/?select=about&data=videoWords Burchfield Penny Art Center / YouTube video / Burchfield’s
Words, Burchfield’s Marks, A Curatorial Perspective
www.butlerart.com/pc_book/pages/charles_ephraim_burchfield_1893.htm Butler Art / essay by Marlene Park
Charles Burchfield was a keen observer of nature, who, as he said "early formed the habit of wandering off to the woods and fields
by myself, or accompanied only by a dog, in search of wild flowers in the spring, or colored leaves in the fall. . . ."I He kept a
journal as full of poetic and moving nature imagery as are his paintings. He also kept portfolios with notes on his observations for
each month of the year. Of September he noted: "Nature ... has forsaken her secluded haunts, the woods, and has gone forth
boldly to the fields. Burchfield's memories of childhood and his imaginative fantasies were as important as his naturalist's
observations...
www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/arts/design/25burchfield.html?pagewanted=all New York Times / online / Art & Design Review /
Nature, Up Close and Personal by Holland Cotter, 6/24/ 2010
www.tfaoi.com/newsmu/nmus10d.htm National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
www.nmaa.si.edu The Paintings of Charles Burchfield, 1997 exhibition overview
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_E._Burchfield Wikipedia / Charles Burchfield artist overview
Available @ KMA Library:
Burchfiled Paintings, 1915-1964. DC Moore Gallery, NY, 2005.
Charles Burchfield Watercolors, 1915-1920. Kennedy Galleries, Inc. NY, 1990. ND1839.B88.
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THOMAS CAMPBELL (b.1834, England; d.1914, Maryville, TN)
Thomas Campbell, Untitled, circa 1890. Watercolor on paper
After spending most of his career as a missionary, Campbell came to Knoxville in 1893 to focus on landscape painting. He soon
became a prominent figure in East Tennessee’s early arts community. This untitled painting is a classic example of the small,
intimate scenes of everyday pastoral life in East Tennessee for which the artist was known. In addition to his studio practice,
Campbell was active as a teacher and founded the art department at Maryville College.
http://caseantiques.com/2008/12/brief-biography-of-tennessee-artists-in-the-dec-6th-2008-auction/ Case Antiques
Painting was a second career for Thomas Campbell, who immigrated to the United States at age 19, and was ordained as a
minister in 1866. He and his family moved to East Tennessee in hopes a climate change would improve the health of his wife,
Susan, but she died in 1892. At that point, Campbell, retired from the ministry and turned art, which had been his hobby, into his
job. He founded the art department at Maryville College in 1902 and headed it until his death. His paintings were exhibited
regionally and won several prizes and medals. He was also active in the Nicholson Art League, and was a talented wood
carver who produced picture frames and small pieces of furniture.
http://charlestonrenaissancegallery.com/pages/art/artists/artistsInventorydetail.aspx?
fsId=1&itemId=1029&artistID=1502&description=Full ... Campbell’s work in Tennessee consisted primarily of landscapes, as well
as fine painting on china.
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JOHN W. CHUMLEY (American, 1929 - 1984)
John W. Chumley, Giles Mill 1973, 1973, Watercolor on paper
John W. Chumley, Davey’s Flag, 1976, Watercolor on paper
Chumley, who grew up in Knoxville, specialized in rustic watercolor scenes of the Shenandoah Valley painted with great attention
to surface detail. He received national recognition at his first New York exhibition in 1962, including notice from a Time magazine
art critic, who complemented Chumley for his “Lyric brush”.
http://www.fountaincitytnhistory.info/People5-Chumley.htm Fountain Citians Who Made a Difference by J.C. (Jim) Tumblin, OD,
DOS
Early in his career the New York Times writer Brian O’Doherty wrote these words in a review for one of his New York shows, "He
expresses imprecise moods very precisely with an immaculate technique that pins down all the minutiae of content. He catches
his subjects unaware, as it were, so that he arrives on the scene at moments of insight and recollection. All passion is spent, and
his work has the lucidity that comes after it ... at his best he is an addition to the American painting of Hopper and Wyeth .... (op.
cit., R.W. Norton Gallery (1972), "Capsuling the Critics.")"
http://www.rwnaf.org/collections/artist?artist=335 RW Norton Foundation / Permanent Collection > John Chumley
Were it not Were it not for a timely football injury, the world might have missed the lyric beauty of John Chumley's paintings.
Chumley was born in 1928 in Rochester, Minnesota where his father was a resident at the Mayor Clinic. After a few years, the
family returned to the Knoxville, Tennessee area where John attended the McCampbell School and the Tennessee Military
Institute in Sweetwater before receiving a football scholarship to the University of Kentucky. Any future with the NFL was nipped in
the bud by a knee injury and Chumley began to focus on his other love - art. While doing post-graduate work with Walter
Stuempfig at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he discovered his affinity for realistic rural landscapes. He continued to
study and evolve his art, attending the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Florida where he met his wife, Bettye Roberts, and
serving as the artist-in-residence at the Fort Worth Center of Art in Fort Worth, Texas from 1958 - 1961. During his travels, he had
discovered the beauties of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley and he and his wife settled permanently at Vaucluse, their 400-acre
estate just outside of Middletown in 1961.
Often questioned about his allegiance to realism in an era when abstraction ruled, Chumley replied, "In art school I saw students
of near genius achieve spectacular results with abstraction - but too quickly . . . It was too easy. For me there has to be a
challenge. I wanted more. More knowledge of what went before, so I could bring it to my work." This desire to take his time and
think a painting through was reflected in his choice of medium. Although he also experimented with oils and watercolor his
preferred medium was egg tempera, perhaps the most difficult and certainly the least forgiving of painting media, but one that
allowed him to express best his perception of light.
Though he consistently chose his subjects from his everyday life and the world around Vaucluse, his work possesses a lyricism
that raises them above the mundane. A 1962 article in Time magazine entitled "Lyric Brush" finished with this poignant description
of the evocative nature of his works:
A painting of three children's swing sic, hanging empty from a leafless tree, is filled with yesterday's laughter. A bent farmer, seen
through the cavern of a big barn, seems the loneliest man on earth. And the open window of an abandoned house fills one canvas
with mystery, like a mouth that has much to tell but cannot speak.
Unfortunately, an illness cut short his career in 1984 when he was only 56. Fittingly, he was buried at the Mount Hebron Cemetery
in the heart of the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. In his honor, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia passed Joint
Resolution No. 81, mourning "the loss of John W. Chumley while noting his unique talent" and expressing sympathy for his widow
and family. Everl Adair, Director of Research and Rare Collection
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RICHARD CLARKE (American, 1923 - 1997 Alcoa, TN *)
* from http://www.obitcentral.com/obitsearch/obits/tn/tn-knox66.html
Richard Clarke, Untitled (Rainstorm), 1966, Watercolor on paper
Richard Clarke, Untitled (Quarry), 1963, Watercolor on paper
Richard Clarke, Agglomerate, 1967, Watercolor on paper
Clarke was one of the early members of the University of Tennessee’s art faculty. He found inspiration for his watercolor
abstractions in the natural world around him. Here, the artist applies drops of water onto his composition to enhance the depiction
of a coastal storm.
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ADOLF ARTHUR DEHN (American, b.1895 Minnesota - d.1968 New York)
Adolf Dehn, Love, Labor, and Leisure, 1944, Watercolor on paper
After focusing on experimental approaches to printmaking early in his career, Dehn discovered a passion for watercolor, and
turned his attention to producing detailed scenes of everyday life. In the year this work was created he was spending time at the
artist colony in Woodstock, New York, and also producing images for the U. S. Navy’s war effort.
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/dehn_adolf.html Artcyclopedia > Adlof Dehn > artwork references & image archives online
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Dehn Wikipedia online encyclopedia > Adolf Dehn > artist overview & links
Two-time recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, Dehn was one of the most notable lithographers of the 20th century.
Throughout his artistic career, Dehn participated in and helped define some important movements in American art, including
Regionalism, Social Realism, and caricature. He was known for both his technical skills and his high-spirited, droll depictions of
human foibles.
http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/45/v45i05p166-186.pdf Adolf Dehn: The Minnesota Connection by
Richard W. Cox
http://www.dwigmore.com/dehn.html D. Wigmore fine Art, NY / Adolf Dehn bio.
... In 1937 Adolf Dehn's career took an important turn. He discovered that he liked working in watercolor: its fluidity was suitable to
either deliberate or spontaneous efforts. In the beginning Dehn was a little insecure about his brush-drawn landscapes and his
colors, as he had only worked in black and white up to that point in his career. Dehn's fear quickly subsided, however, at the
American Artists' Congress show of 1937 when one of his paintings was the only picture sold in the show.
http://www.sama-art.org/info/publications/catalog/dehn_cat/dehn_text.html Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art / Adolf Dehn: An
American Master by Graziella Marchicelli, Ph.D. Fine Arts Curator
http://collections.terraamericanart.org/view/people/asitem/items$0040null:189/0 Terra Foundation for American Art
Biography:
Watercolor painter, draftsman, and innovative printmaker, Adolph Dehn is best known for satirical views of modern
American life. Dehn was born in rural Waterville, Minnesota, the son of a commercial trapper and fisherman. He studied at the
Minneapolis Art School with painter and printmaker Gustav Goetsch (1877–1969). In 1917, a one-year scholarship brought Dehn
to the Art Students League in New York City, where his teachers included Kenneth Hayes Miller, a social realist artist, and radical
cartoonist Boardman Robinson (1876–1952). Dehn was a conscientious objector during World War I, when he spent several
months in Asheville, North Carolina, teaching art to soldiers afflicted with tuberculosis.
In 1920, back in New York, Dehn made his first lithograph (a print made from smooth-surfaced stone plate bearing an image
drawn in a water-resistant medium to which an oil-based ink adheres). The following year he traveled to Europe. Living in Vienna
and then in Paris, Dehn published a series of lithographic illustrations in several avant-garde magazines and contributed to the
socialist journal The Masses. In Paris, he worked with French printer and publisher Edmond Desjobert in a workshop that nurtured
a generation of important American printmakers. Dehn made his own technical innovations, which he introduced to American
artists on several extended trips to the United States.
Dehn himself lived a somewhat peripatetic existence that took him to exotic destinations in Africa, Asia, and South America in the
course of his career; Guggenheim Fellowships in 1939 and 1951 funded visits to the American West, Mexico, and Cuba. From his
home base of New York, he became a leader among American printmakers. He exhibited actively, contributed drawings to
publications in both Europe and the United States, and marketed his prints through the Adolph Dehn Print Club, a commercial
venture. He also was a founding member of the Contemporary Print Group, formed to promote the work of several American
printmakers.
Dehn worked almost exclusively in black and white until the mid-1930s when, discouraged by a lack of sales, he took a decadelong hiatus from printmaking to concentrate on watercolor painting; later he also took up oil painting. In watercolors, Dehn began
to explore rural landscape subjects. His watercolors were consistently in demand as magazine illustrations and he also
found work as a teacher, notably at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, in Colorado. Dehn published three books of his own on
technique in painting and lithography. He was awarded full membership in the National Academy of Design in 1961. Dehn died in
New York at the age of seventy-two, a few months after a retrospective exhibition of his work was held at FAR Gallery and the
Century Association; the following year the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts (now the Columbus Museum of Art) in Columbus, Ohio,
organized a touring exhibition devoted to the artist.
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THORNTON DIAL, Sr. (American, b. 1928)
Thornton Dial, Sr., Life Go On, 1991, Pencil and watercolor on paper
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Thornton Dial, Sr., Ethyl and Lucy, the People Loved Lucy, 1990, Pencil and watercolor on paper
Thornton Dial, Sr., Strange Dog, 1991, Pencil and watercolor on paper
Dial, of Bessemer, Alabama, is the most famous vernacular artist from the Southeast. His art is prized for its originality, emotional
impact, and symbolic reflection on the African American experience in the South from the Jim Crow years through the civil-rights
movement, and into the present. Although Dial is well known for his large found object sculptures, during the last two decades
watercolor painting has become his primary artistic outlet. His distinctive method involves applying loose washes of watercolor
pigment over symbolic human and animal figures outlined in pencil.
www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2057318,00.html Time magazine online
/www.outsiderfolkart.com/outsiderart/a-l/Thornton-Dial-Biography.html
Thornton Dial Sr. attended school through the fourth grade and is married with five children. Dial worked for the Pullman Standard
Company for thirty years. He did iron work, cement work, a jack-of-all- trades. Bill Arnett learned of his art through self taught
artist, Lonnie Holley and brought attention of Dial's work to the art world in 1987. Before that time, his wife, Clara Mae, would
make him bury his "junk."
Thornton Dial, sometimes called Buck Dial, created sculptural objects, large assemblages using as found objects. He
also uses pastels and paints on small to large sized artist papers supplied by Arnett. Dial has deep convictions concerning
racial, religious, political, and social valves which he expresses brilliantly in his work. Thornton has had one man shows in
New York City and Houston. He is recognized as one of the greatest living self-taught artists in the United States.
In the fall of 2005, the Houston Fine Arts Museum hosted a show, "Thornton Dial in the 21st Century." The show contained over
60 large assemblage works, sculpture, and works on paper. The accompanying book; Thornton Dial in the 21st Century by Paul
Arnett, Joanne Cobbs and Eugene W. Metcalf Jr. clearly establishes Dial as a premier artist.
Thornton Dial Sr. is one of a handful of artists that will bridge the chasm of self-taught verses trained artists. His brilliant work
begs the question of artistic training. Dial's work is as thoughtful, thought provoking and timeless as the best of contemporary art
in the universe!
Thornton Dial in the Wall Street Journal April 21, 2011 Wall Street Journal article
Thornton Dial in Time Magazine March 14, 2011 Time magazine article
Thornton Dial in the New York Times February 17, 2011 New York Times article
Thornton Dial in Antiques and Fine Art Magazine, 11th Anniversary Issue- Winter 2011, written by Outsider Folk Art Gallery
Director Emily Christensen
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CHARLES KERMIT EWING (American, b.1910, Pittsburgh, PA - d.1976, Knoxville, TN)
C. Kermit Ewing, Landscape, 1947, Watercolor on paper
“Buck” Ewing was a painter, teacher, printmaker, and leading figure in Knoxville’s art scene from the late 1940s to the time of his
death. In the center of this landscape scene the artist scratches into the paper surface to create highlights, and to allow the paint
to accumulate in dark channels.
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JANET FISH (American, b. 1938)
Janet Fish, A Slice of Meringue Pie, 1990, Watercolor on paper
Fish is an internationally-recognized painter whose vibrant domestic scenes, still lifes, and landscapes examine the manner in
which light plays off of surfaces and penetrates the interior structure of various everyday objects.
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/fish_janet.html Artcyclopedia > Janet Fish / online reference of artist works and related links
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/macdowell/mid20th/video15.html Library of Congress: A Century of Creativity > Janet Fish
http://www.luag.org/pages/viewfull.cfm?ElementID=405 Lehigh University Art Galleries > Janet Fish: An American Master,
photo essay by Theo Anderson “Painting for me has always been like opening a door to a dark room and saying okay, I’m going to
step in. I hope there’s a floor there.” (Janet Fish)
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http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/4aa539.htm Traditional Fine Arts Organization
The Art of Janet Fish features the startling realistic oils for which she is known, as well as a selection of her equally fine prints.
Fish's lusciously colored still lifes are filled to overflowing with flowers and glassware, dishes and toys, food and shells, and
objets d'art to appeal to every taste. Born in Boston in 1938, Fish has for many years divided her time between New York City and
Vermont. Both these locations, seen in interiors and in landscapes, are the settings for her not so still still life paintings. Fish's
works are represented in numerous public collections, including the Whitney, Metropolitan, and Cleveland Museums of Art.
Upon examination of the gloriously colored and painterly canvases found in this exhibition, it may not surprise the viewer to learn
that the artistic journey of realist painter Janet Fish began with abstraction. Abstraction was followed in the late 1960s by largeformat representational still lifes of fruits and vegetables. In the 1970s, Fish continued to explore the still life genre, focusing now
on the effect of light on the glass objects and surfaces that crowded her compositions. Beginning in the 1980s, Fish literally
"backed away" from the tables that held her earlier still lifes, creating complex still life scenes set in expansive landscapes and
intimate interiors that are filled with figures, animals and flowers.
Janet Fish was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but her family moved to Bermuda when she was eight years old and she
spent the remainder of her childhood there. In Bermuda, she took art classes after school and worked in her mother's studio
(Fish's mother and uncle were sculptors and her grandfather was a painter). Like her father who enjoyed digging up old bottles,
the young girl was intrigued by found objects, her walks along the beach supplying her with a collection of items washed ashore.
Fish suggests that the luminous island light has influenced her use of dramatic light and color; it is tempting to suggest as
well that her early fascination with "things" has helped to fashion her entire painting career.
Fish received a BFA degree from Smith College in 1960, and later studied for her MFA with painters Alex Katz and Philip
Pearlstein at the Yale University School of Art and Architecture. An abstract painter during most of her school career, it was during
the summer of 1962 (while studying at the Skowhegan Art School) that she quit that style and began painting landscapes. Shortly
after graduation from Yale in 1963, Fish began what would eventually be her forty-year concentration on still life painting.
Throughout art history, still life has traditionally ranked at the bottom of the other painting genres. This ranking is primarily due to
the fact that the subjects comprising still lifes are most often the ordinary, everyday items found in a home or studio.
Flowers, dishes, and objets d'art, seem to pale in comparison with portraiture, landscapes, historical scenes, and the human body.
Even the term "still life" suggests something passive and immovable. This is certainly not the case with Fish's not so still
still lifes, no matter how common the subjects. All of her paintings, especially those of the past two decades, are infused with
bright light and movement, vibrant color combinations and vigorous brushstrokes, and a real sense of joie de vivre.
It is interesting to learn that Fish does not "compose" painted studies or drawings for her finished oils. Often she simply
throws the objects on a table and begins to paint "as is."
This is diametrically in opposition to her early years when she sometimes took days to set up an arrangement and complete the
painting. She has said: "I've changed; it's been thirty years and I've changed. With my early paintings of glasses, I really did spend
a long time arranging them. The fact is, now when I have an idea I just slam into it."
Janet Fish is dedicated and prodigious artist who continues to "slam into" paintings with the same excellent results that have
always characterized her remarkable and influential body of work.
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DOT GALLOWAY (American, dates unknown)
Dot Galloway, Sunflowers II, circa 1979, Watercolor on paper
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GEORGE GALLOWAY (American, dates unknown)
George Galloway, Past Gone, 1985, Watercolor on paper www.knoxart.org/downloads/acquisitions.pdf
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CHARLES ROGERS “RED” GROOMS (b.1937 Nashville, TN - residence NYC)
Red Grooms, Hot Dog Vendor No. 3, 1997, Paper construction, watercolor, and graphite
A Nashville native, Grooms is a multi-media artist known for his inventive, playful works on topics ranging from big-city life to art
history. Hot Dog Vendor No. 3 represents one of the artist’s many experiments with bringing sculptural effects to typically twodimensional media such as painting and printmaking.
www.knoxart.org / Knoxville Museum of Art / education > artists
Grooms (born Charles Rogers Grooms) is a painter, sculptor, and performance artist known for his cartoon like images
and for his “sculpto-pictoramas” which are exuberant 3 dimensional environments. He attended the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago, The New School of Social Research, NY, and the Hans Hofmann School, Cape Cod, MA. During the 1950s
and 1960s Grooms participated in “happenings” with other New York artists Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, and Jim Dine, setting
the stage for his interest in theatrical sets and performance art. Grooms often depicts popular culture.
http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/25730/red-grooms/ ArtInfo online / Red Grooms interview by Robert Ayers, publ. Oct. 2, 2007.
http://www.bookrags.com/biography/red-grooms/ / Book Rags / Encyclopedia of World Biography on Red Grooms.
http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/galleries/chelsea/artists/red-grooms / Marlborough Gallery > Red Grooms / artist biography
and bibliography of artworks, exhibitions, designs, interviews, books, films, television, performances
For nearly fifty years Grooms has combined color, vibrancy, and a generous dose of self-deprecating humor to produce
art in all media that provokes and delights. He pokes fun at the icons of American politics, entertainment, and the art
world, while paying homage to his subjects at the same time. No artist since Honoré Daumier has had a greater
understanding of humor or a more direct connection to his audience.
As a painter, sculptor, printmaker, filmmaker and theater designer, Grooms' career to this point has been prolific. His graphic
works alone encompass an array of art forms including etchings, lithographs (two and three-dimensional), monotypes, woodblock
prints and spray-painted stencils. Throughout the late 1980's and the mid 1990's Grooms devoted himself to a series of prints and
three-dimensional works called New York Stories for which he is well known.
http://www.pbs.org/hanshofmann/red_grooms_001.html / PBS Hans Hofmann Legacy > Red Grooms bio., works, interview
excerpts
http://rogallery.com/Grooms_Red/grooms-biography.htm
RoGallery, Long Island City, NY / Red Grooms bio.
www.tennesseecrossroads.org / Jan. 2011 / Joe Elmore interviews Red Grooms about his interest in the Civil War at the famous
artist’s Cumberland mountain art studio in Beersheba Springs, TN.
http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/2aa/2aa658.htm Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc. / Red Grooms: Selections from the Graphic
Work; essays by Susan W. Knowles
http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/6aa/6aa160c.htm Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc. / Red Grooms: Ruckus in Roslyn, essays by
Constance Schwartz and Franklin Hill Perrell
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/g/red_grooms/index.html / The New York Times > Times Topics >
People > Grooms / 42 articles and reviews about Red Grooms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3kkjpWhhgU / You Tube online video / Red Grooms videos from Documentaries on Art series
http://www.artsmia.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Grooms / Wikipedia > Red Grooms / artist bio. and overview
________________________________________________________________________________________________
CHARLES CHRISTIAN KRUTCH (1849 South Carolina; d.1934 Knoxville, TN)
Charles Christian Krutch is regarded as one of East Tennessee’s first painters to specialize in scenes of the Smoky Mountains. He
earned the nickname “Corot of the South” for his soft, atmospheric watercolor and oil landscape paintings of the mountain range.
Totally untrained as an artist, he often applied thick layers of oil paint with brushes as well as his fingers. Krutch’s goal was to
capture the changing “moods” of the mountains and regarded his subjects as “just like people.” He won a regional award for best
watercolor at the 1913 National Conservation Exposition in Knoxville. However, it was not until 1933, a year before his death, that
the 84 year-old artist received recognition outside Knoxville for his idyllic mountain landscape murals commissioned by the federal
government as part of the Public Works Art Project.
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Charles Krutch, Untitled, circa 1920, Watercolor on paper
Charles Krutch, Little River, before 1918, Watercolor on paper
Charles Krutch, Untitled, circa 1920, Watercolor on paper
http://www.knoxart.org/downloads/acquisitions.pdf Knoxville Museum of Art
www.askart.com/askart/k/charles_christopher_krutch/charles_christopher_krutch.aspx Ask Art artist bio.artpedia
Biography from Charleston Renaissance Gallery:
Charles Krutch was born in South Carolina, the son of Emile and Emma (Wiersing) Krutch, who emigrated from Germany in the
political turmoil of 1848. His father was a music teacher who married one of his former pupils. For a time they lived at the
German settlement of Wartburg in Morgan County, East Tennessee. They may have lived in Virginia also, but by 1861 the family
was in Knoxville. Krutch lived in Knoxville for the rest of his life, except for a period after the Civil War when he studied and
worked with a photographer in Atlanta.
In 1893, Krutch was working in Knoxville as an operator and retoucher for McCrary and Branson, which dealt in both
photographs and paintings. In 1904 he become retoucher at Brakebill and McCoy Studio, and he continued with William J.
McCoy Studio until his death.
For many years Krutch was organist at St. John's Episcopal Church and Church of the Epiphany in Knoxville. His main
avocation, however, was painting. He was entirely self-taught. The mountains were his only subjects. In the summer he
took a train to Sevierville, and then by wagon went deep into the Smokies, where he spent weeks at a time living with a local
family and doing sketches. His favorite areas were Le Conte, the Sugarland Valley and Chimney Tops.
Krutch converted his sketches into paintings in Knoxville. Early in his career he worked in watercolors. Then the artist
tried oils, which sometimes he applied with his fingers, as his canvases attest. His oils were murky and not as accomplished as
his watercolors, to which he returned later in life. He sold his pictures through Gagg Picture Framery in Knoxville. He attracted
notice for his paintings at the Appalachian Exposition in Knoxville in 1910. Later, some fellow artists called him the Corot of the
South."
At the age of 84 he was the first artist to receive a U.S. government commission from the Public Works of Art (PWA)
Project. He produced at least two canvasses for a federally-sponsored traveling exhibition. He died on July 4, 1934.
He never married. His sister, Louise Wilhelmen Krutch, kept house for him.
Ref: Lucile Deaderick, ed., Heart of the Valley, A History of Knoxville, Tennessee. (Knoxville, 1976), 550-51.
James C. Kelly, Landscape and Genre Painting in Tennessee, 1810-1985 (Nashville, Tennessee: The Tennessee Historical
Society, 1985), 106.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park By Steve Cotham. pg. 14. / photo of Krutch at Smoky Mountain cabin
available at http://books.google.com/books ;
______________________________________________________________________________________
WHITNEY LELAND (b. 1945 - residence TN)
Whitney Leland, Untitled, 1972, Watercolor on paper, 48 x 36 inches
Leland has achieved a national reputation for his vibrant organic abstractions in oil and in watercolor. For more than four
decades, he has explored the process of painting with great discipline by restricting his imagery to a limited set of variables—
tangled, symmetrically arranged bands of color. Leland is recently retired from the University of Tennessee’s painting faculty, and
is one of the earliest graduates of the UT’s art program.
http://www.knoxart.org/downloads/acquisitions.pdf Knoxville Museum of Art
http://i12bent.tumblr.com/post/95509505/whitney-e-leland-b-april-12-1945-may-19 / Ordinary Finds / onlineArt archive / Leland
image & short bio.
www.numberinc.org/pdf/No55.pdf Number: Independent Arts Journal. / pg. 10. Three Paths to Abstraction: Herbert, Leland &
Mode exhibit review.
www.vanderbilt.edu/gallery/pe_0506.html Vanderbilt University (search: main page > Fine Arts Gallery > Previous Exhibitions >
2005/2006 > Three Paths to Abstraction : Herbert, Leland & Mode).
________________________________________________________________________________________________
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RUTHIE WINDSOR MANN (American, b.1948)
Ruthie Windsor Mann, Toy Story, circa 1982, Watercolor on paper
Mann is a Knoxville native who specializes in watercolors of architectural subjects.
http://ruthiewindsormann.com/ Ruthie Windsor Mann / artist website / bio., articles, artworks
A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Ruthie Windsor Mann has lived and painted in Linville, North Carolina for a number of years and
has recently moved to Washington, Virginia. Ruthie has traveled and painted in many countries throughout the world.
Proclaiming that European buildings are her favorite subject matter, she is inspired in painting anything if the light is intriguing.
She works primarily in oils, watercolors, pen and ink along with egg tempera on icons. In the past she has worked in intaglio.
Having received her B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Tennessee, Ruthie has been been a professional artist since
1970. Her past and present juried signature memberships include the Rocky Mountain National Watermedia Society, Tennessee
Watercolor Society, and Southern Watercolor Society. She has received many individual awards in juried exhibitions throughout
the United States and has particpated in numerous one woman and group shows. Occasionally, Ruthie will teach a workshop, but
her primary interest is in producing artwork.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
ROBERT A. NELSON (American, b.1925)
Robert A. Nelson, Seated Woman, circa 1965, Watercolor and gouache on paper
Nelson has enjoyed a national reputation for his eccentric, surreal figures drawn with great detail, vivid imagination, and dry wit.
Here, he applies watercolor and gouache in small strokes to define anatomical details as if revealed from within.
http://fmva.us/2011/09/12/robert-nelson-rourke-art-museum/ Rourke Art Museum, MN / Robert A. Nelson at the Rourke Art
Museum / Artist Bio & Exhibition Statement: Robert A. Nelson was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1925. He studied at the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received his B.A.E. degree in 1950 and the M.A.E degree in 1951. He received his
Education Doctorate in 1971 from New York University. Dr. Nelson has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
University of Manitoba, University of North Dakota, Cleveland State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and
Millersville University. He is presently living in Lakeside, OR with his wife Louise where he maintains a studio and continues to
draw and paint every day.
.... Over the years his work has found its inspiration in sources such as American presidents of the past, Buck Roger’s
raygun, and the fantastical world of the Wizard of Oz. Early pop art paintings enriched with assemblage elements hang
alongside Nelson’s more classically inspired oil paintings while neon sculptures and ceramic objects highlight his
mastery of multiple media.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
LALLAH MILES PERRY (American, b.1926, Mississippi - d. 2008-9)
Lallah Miles Perry, Strawflowers, circa 1964, Watercolor on rice paper
http://www.southernbreeze.net/tour019a.htm Southern Breeze Gallery, Mississippi
Lallah Perry - A Retrospective (in her own words)
Looking backward, dealing with people, places, and impressions over the past 50 or so years...It will clearly be a mixed bag.
Between 1950 and 2000, I had children, and they grew up, and I went into college teaching. Situations, relationships and
geography changed.
To experience life and its’ changes, from the philosophy of Social Realism taught at Auburn in the 1940’s – Grant Wood, Thomas
Hart Benton, etc. and, more influentially, through the innovative explorations of the cubists and abstract-expressionists and
impressionists has been an exciting trip.
I have had the advantage of being able to study with outstanding teachers such as Marie Hull and Homer Casteel, in Jackson, and
at Allison’s and Mississippi Art Colonies with Alvin Sella, Howard Goodson, Moe Brooker, Hugh Williams, Edith Frohock, and many
others, over the years. In the venture, I have explored many media – oils, watercolor, acrylic, and mixed combinations; enjoying
the process of making pieces, and making comments, rather than recording events and scenes.
Additionally, some ideas seem to ask for certain media. As powerful an event as the Tienamin Square Uprising seemed to
demand a violent composition – with obvious references to Picasso’s Guernica included.
I did the “Watercolor Quilt” when I was doing fabric projects and teaching watercolor classes – pulling it all together, as it were –
it’s a sort of sketchbook – scrapbook.
My first painting was in oil on canvas, but obviously has taken other routes in the interval, especially with the introduction of acrylic
paint, and the possibilities of mixed media as a result – much easier with acrylic.
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I’ve always been interested in fabrics. Learning to embroider and sew at a young age. While teaching at Delta State, this led into
making fabric collages and weaving – especially in the form of tapestries. That’s another hands-on process, more in my control
than the loom’s.
I remind myself of that line from “Don Quixote”, where he “Jumped on his horse and rode madly off in all directions”.
One of my paintings hung in the Smithsonian Museum as part of an exhibition of the Washington Watercolor Society; one, in the
(New Orleans) World’s Fair Exhibit. One, through a program sponsored by the U.S. State Department, hung in the American
Embassy, in Rabat, Morocco. Others have been part of shows in the Delgado Museum, New Orleans, and the High Museum in
Atlanta, GA, The Brooks Museum, Memphis, TN, and The Society of the Four Arts, West Palm Beach, FL. The paintings have
been to interesting places, some of which I have also visited.
Some now reside in the permanent collections of the Mississippi Museum of Art, The Meridian Museum, Deposit Guaranty Bank,
Trustmark Bank, Delta State University, Meridian Community College, Peat-Marwick, and numerous other public and private
collections, from here to England. (No – I haven’t been there, either) - Lallah Miles Perry
http://neshobademocrat.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=297&ArticleID=17734&TM=64878.23&PollID=214&btnView=1
The Neshoba Democrat, Mississippi / 2008 bio.-obituary Artist Lallah Perry was inspirational teacher by managing editor Debbie Burt Myers
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
ANNE S. POWERS (American, dates unknown)
Anne S. Powers, The Cronkite Hour, 1974, Watercolor on paper
Powers is an East Tennessee native and long-time member of the art faculty at Roane State Community College in Harriman.
Although much of Powers’ early career was devoted to watercolor, by the late 1970s she shifted her energies to computer
graphics and design, and then to small-scale mixed media works.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
WILLIAM SAROYAN (American, 1908 - 1981)
William Saroyan, Fresno #5, 1968, Watercolor on paper
Saroyan specialized in abstract watercolor compositions that represent his emotional response to certain locations, in this case his
hometown of Fresno, California. Applying watercolor in bold gestures resembling cryptic calligraphy, the artist often used his
paintings to capture memories of earlier visits. Saroyan was better known as the Pulitzer- and Oscar-winning novelist and
playwright for The Time of Your Life and Human Comedy.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
HUBERT SHUPTRINE (American b. 1936, Chattanooga, TN; d. 2006 Chattanooga, TN)
Hubert Shuptrine, Cookstove, 1986, Watercolor on paper
Shuptrine, of Chattanooga, was well-known for his rustic subjects rendered in tiny, precise strokes in the tradition of Andrew
Wyeth.
http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/3aa/3aa175.htm / Traditional Fine Arts Online, Inc. / Hubert Shuptrine, article by Martha R. Severens,
Greenville County Museum of Art, Curator
Hubert Shuptrine has described working in watercolor as "chasing rainbows," yet for the past thirty years he has
undertaken the task of taming this evasive medium. Shuptrine began as an abstract oil painter in the 1960s, earning various
awards as well as the praise of his mentors. His turning point came in 1970 on a family vacation to Maine. Originally planned as a
two-week respite, the trip became a three-month stay during which Shuptrine taught himself the basics of watercolor
painting. "I was fascinated with watercolor. If I had studied it in art school it wouldn't be the same. Most watercolors are very
pastel, wet in wet; that didn't seem important to me."
Like many artists before him, he found the landscape and the light of Maine inspirational. Significantly, at Prout's Neck he
visited the studio of Winslow Homer, one of the early champions of watercolor, who succeeded in legitimizing it as a medium in
its own right. Shuptrine reckoned not only with Homer, but also with other painters of Maine, including Edward Hopper, John
Marin, and Andrew Wyeth -- all masters of watercolor.
... Shuptrine uses watercolor both in transparent washes and in layers. He achieves each painting's denseness and richness
of tone -- holdovers from his days as a modernist oil painter -- through the technique of drybrush and the application of a
thickening agent. He is adamant about the nature of drybrush. "The term drybrush has become a misapplied term. Drybrush is
a technique of watercolor painting -- not a medium in itself. I would define drybrush as a method of drawing or painting
in watercolor with tiny strokes. One method of drybrushing is to splay out the hairs of a sable round in order to make
several strokes at once. That method does not work well for me. I can't control the details in that manner. So instead, I
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drybrush with only the point of the brush, sketching and modeling the form as one would sketch with a pencil. This is
done over watercolor washes that approximate the end color values desired."
http://www.hubertshuptrine.com/ / Hubert Shuptrine / artist’s official website
www.artknowledgenews.com/Hubert_Shuptrine.html / Alan Shuptrine Fine Art
...Hubert Shuptrine, the nationally renowned American realist. The Chattanooga native is well known for his two books: Jericho:
The South Beheld (Oxmoor House, 1974), which he created with the late poet, James Dickey; and Home to Jericho
(Oxmoor House, 1984). Both books comprised collections of his most beloved watercolors that focused on the
vanishing South.
Born in 1936, Hubert Shuptrine was a full-time artist for nearly 50 years. Honored throughout his life with numerous museum
exhibitions and art awards, Hubert Shuptrine was a recipient of the 2005 Governor’s Award for Distinguished Artist. He was also
recently honored posthumously with an exhibition at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia. Entitled Realizations: The Art
of Hubert Shuptrine, this major exhibit celebrated the artist’s works of Native American subjects.
When asked, audiences naturally think of Hubert Shuptrine’s works to be those of realistic watercolors. Very few people know
that he began his career as an abstract painter. He experimented greatly with the different mediums of oil, acrylic, gouache, and
casein before making watercolor his permanent medium in the early 1970s. Hubert Shuptrine ~ Early Works will focus on
paintings completed before 1972, and will include a range of styles from abstract expressionism to cubism and realism.
http://www.artnet.com/artists/hubert-shuptrine/biography-links / Art Net / Hubert Shuptrine bio. & links
Hubert Shuptrine is an accomplished artist with an insightful approach to depicting America’s heartland, its people, its
traditions, and its landscape. Whether focusing on the pattern of creases in a timeworn face, the tiniest strands of whiskers in a
bristly beard, or the uneven rhythm of weathered boards on the side of an old cabin, Shuptrine penetrates the surface of his
subjects to reveal their inner spirit. In depicting people, he sees his images more as a form of visual biography than as
portraiture. His goal is to reveal in all his subjects “the sum of moments – past, present, and future infused into a single
glance.”
Shuptrine’s brushwork ranges from broad washes of subtle color to a dry brush technique characterized by tiny strokes
of tightly controlled pigment. This technical variety enables him to render broad atmospheric effects such as mist, laden skies,
or morning light spilling through a window as well as intricate details and textures. However impressive, his realistic technique in
no way diminishes the expressive power of his paintings. As Shuptrine explains, “I don’t think of myself as a realist because if you
look up that word in the dictionary, it is one who paints with precision without regard for ideology, feeling, or the potential of
meanings. I refer to my works as ‘realizations’ because I like the subjective part of painting as much as the objective part
of painting. I like to be involved with my subjects so that what I am painting is emotion as much as surface appearance.”
A native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, born in 1936, Shuptrine holds a degree in fine arts painting from the University of
Tennessee at Chattanooga. His works are held by private collectors nationwide and are included in numerous corporate and
museum collections. A dynamic speaker, Shuptrine lectures to a wide range of audiences.
The publication of his first book Jericho: The South Beheld (1974) brought him national recognition and broke all records in
the history of art book publishing. Following the first edition of 150,000 copies, a second edition of 25,000 was sold. His second
book Home to Jericho(1987) also received national acclaim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Shuptrine / Wikipedia / Alan Shuptrine (son of Hubert Shuptrine)
Hubert Shuptrine was known for chronicling the “dying South” as subject matter for his realistic watercolors. Hubert cocreated the book Jericho: The South Beheld with the late poet James Dickey, and received a Pulitzer Prize Nomination as well
as the coveted Carey Thomas Award.
Shuptrine, Hubert. Home to Jericho. Birmingham, AL: Oxmoor House: c1987. Print.
available @ Knox County Public Library / Oversize : 917.5 SHU
UT Hodges Library / Oversize: ND1839.S48 A4 1987.
Shuptrine, Hubert. Jericho: The South Beheld. Birmingham, AL: Oxmoor House, 1974. Print.
available @ Knox County Public Library / Oversize : 917.5 SHU
UT Hodges Library / Oversize: ND1839.S48 D53.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
JERED SPRECHER (American, born 1976)
Sprecher, who teaches painting at the University of Tennessee’s School of Art, approaches his medium in ways that challenge
traditional notions of the painting process and pictorial space. His inventive compositions present unlikely combinations of images
borrowed from high and low sources, whether motifs from famous paintings, architectural blueprints, or graffiti scrawls on a wall
near his studio. Their original meaning and associations are often subdued, altered or lost in favor of their new role as formal
devices. Sprecher is also interested in the expressive possibilities inherent in certain types of papers, and in some cases elects to
paint on found stationery or graph paper.
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Jered Sprecher, Open (Slip), 2007, Watercolor on paper
Jered Sprecher, Manifold (Unknown), 2007, Watercolor on found stationery
Jered Sprecher, Prismatic, 2005, Watercolor and gouache on found paper
Jered Sprecher, Incise, 2008, Acrylic on paper
Jered Sprecher, Grunewald (Letter), 2005, Acrylic on found paper
http://www.knoxart.org/downloads/acquisitions.pdf The Art of Art by Chris Barrett , Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Knoxville painter Jered Sprecher receives a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship to support his abstract creations.
Jered Sprecher teaches painting and drawing at the University of Tennessee. Next year he’ll be teaching, primarily by example,
the importance of perseverance, healthy self-esteem and individuality. He won’t be in the classroom or his faculty studio. This
week, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced that Sprecher will receive a year-long fellowship that will
basically give him a year off from teaching and allow him to paint full-time.
At a time when much arts funding is withering and people are debating whether or not there is even a need or place for art in the
new economy, the news is encouraging on many levels.
“The Guggenheim Fellowship awards excellent thinking,” says Chris Molinski, Associate Curator of Education and Adult Programs
at Knoxville Museum of Art. “Grants from this foundation are received by artists but also by writers, scientists, mathematicians,
philosophers, and lawyers. Out of a couple hundred honorees, there are usually only a handful of painters. It is really significant
that the Guggenheim recognizes Jered as a new and interesting artist working with paint. It is really difficult to do anything new
with painting.”
In his fourth-floor studio in UT’s Art and Architecture Building, Sprecher is about to call it a day. Three walls are covered with new
paintings, and each of those paintings appears to have at least some wet paint on it. Sprecher’s putting his final touches on this
group of works before it gets packed to be shipped off to Zevitas Gallery, in Boston, Mass..
“I wrote that I wanted to get some time to work on some more ambitious projects, specifically larger paintings,” he says, describing
the proposal he’d sent the Guggenheim Foundation, along with samples of his work. “For many years I’ve been making paintings
that are this scale.” He gestures to a cluster of paintings, all about 20 inches by 16 inches. “Now I’m starting to push the scale.
In some ways it feels that there’s a preciousness to the small paintings. But just because of their scale you can do things quickly
on them, take chances. Basically what I want to do is take chances on the larger paintings.”
Sprecher’s abstracts are simultaneously playful and challenging. They celebrate and explore the complicated
relationships between colors; between light and its absence; between forms that might, at first, seem to have no
relationship other than the fact that he has placed them together on the same canvas. It’s easy to imagine the attraction to
more real estate, and the demands and pleasures that might come with attempting to solve those same kinds of problems on a
larger scale.
... Some people who hear the improvised—or abstract—music that John Coltrane made late in his life imagine that it’s completely
random and without forethought or structure. But those who listen deeply and openly can hear the ways that compositions like
“Ascension” or “Love Supreme” benefit from his many years of playing bebop and ballads and R&B. Similarly, one can see in
Sprecher’s paintings solutions to the kinds of perspective problems that an artist only learns by painting landscapes. One can see
objects that are not people, but which still profit from his former fondness for portraits.
Sprecher studied in Iowa and Nebraska. He describes an epiphany from those years that has shaped his style.
“As a young artist, near the end of undergraduate and during graduate school, I was doing a lot of work where I’d make drawings,”
he says. “I’d go to a local nursing home and I would draw portraits of the people, the residents there. Sometimes I’d talk and
interact with them. Sometimes they’d watch me draw. I sort of became part of that community. Two or three times a week, I’d
spend several hours there.
“At one point when I was there, I just got tired of drawing. And this lady who had been watching me draw, and seemed very
interested in what I was doing, I asked her if she wanted to draw. The first thing she drew was two circles overlapping, and
another two circles, overlapping. Then she drew a rectangle around them. I wasn’t sure what that was at first. She said, ‘That’s
me,’ and she pointed to herself and pointed to her glasses. The next thing she did, she drew a box, and then parallel lines inside
the box. Then she reached next to her and she had this book she was reading, and she said, ‘That’s the book I’m reading.’
“It’s not like that event changed me immediately. But I’m sitting here talking about it at least 10 years later. I kind of filed it away. I
started thinking about the efficiency with which she had related these ideas. There was some mystery there, because I didn’t know
what these pictograms were at first. But once they revealed themselves, there was a humor to them, and also tension, with the
shaking of her hand. I think that’s been a foundation for me. I’m engaged in this thing called painting or art-making. There’s a
long history of it. I think of it as being interconnected to this longing to communicate with other people. Whether it’s a
portrait painting that says, ‘Hey, this person was here, this is what they looked like and this a way we can remember them,’ or
graffiti-like street tags saying, ‘Hey, I was here,’ in some ways functioning similar to a portrait. I think a lot about this quilt that my
grandmother made for my father when he was going off to college. Just a simple geometric pattern on it—triangles—but it’s a
sailboat. It’s this thing to keep him warm, but also I wonder if my grandmother thought of it as this boat that is taking my son on his
life’s journey. “These things can be abstract, but also humane and personal.”
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www.jeredsprecher.com/statement.html Artist Statement
I am a hunter and a gatherer, constantly accumulating images produced by the people and cultures around me. Segments
of this collection of images then emerge in my paintings. My work shows images that are revealed as fragments in the midst of
change, destruction, redefinition, and restoration. The sources they are drawn from are changing and evolving and the paintings
are caught in that “still” moment of change. Today as the exchange of information increases on a daily basis, it becomes more
difficult to trace the heredity of images. One is seldom afforded the time to begin to understand what one is viewing before the
image has moved on and evolved. It is out of this fast paced exchange that I extract elements that resonate with a sense of vital
meaning. I seek to use this wide language of visual marks and notations to describe that which humanity has in common, be it
humor, mortality, or yearning to understand what is beyond.
My work is based in an eclectic aesthetic. My paintings extract elements from the high and low of visual culture. This culture
and crush of images is in constant flux. My paintings hold no single allegiance, but are constantly shifting from one form of
representation to another. The paintings function as sources of both inductive and deductive image making processes. In our dayto-day life, one is seldom afforded the time to comprehend what one is viewing under the barrage of images produced by
humankind. I try to grasp a single moment, a glance, a small epiphany. The paintings are haptic documents of everything
and nothing.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
WALTER Hollis “HOLLY” STEVENS (American, b. 1927 Mineola, NY; d. 1980 Knoxville, TN)
Walter H. Stevens, Storm Shore, 1965, Watercolor on paper
Stevens used nature’s forms as a point of entry into complex abstract compositions. He and fellow artist Carl Sublett often worked
together in the summer along the Maine coastline. Along with Sublett and C. Kermit “Buck” Ewing, he was one of the first faculty
members of the University of Tennessee’s art department. He was also a core member of the Knoxville Seven, a group of
forward-looking artists active between 1959 and 1965 who were among the first in East Tennessee to experiment with abstract
expressionism. The KMA presented a large exhibition of his watercolors in 1992.
Walter Hollis Stevens was a pioneering abstract expressionist in East Tennessee and an early member of the University of
Tennessee’s art department. He and fellow artist Carl Sublett spent summers painting in Maine, using the landscape as the
basis for their bold, improvisational experiments with color and form.
www.askart.com Ask Art, online artists’ bluebook > search: Walter H. Stevens > art images & quick facts
Miscellaneous: Moffatt, Frederick C. Walter Hollis Stevens: An Exhibition of Paintings, 1956-1980. Knoxville, TN: University
of Tennessee 1981. Print.
Available @:UT Hodges Library / Special Collections / Univ. Archives: N40.1.S8375 M6
UT Hodges Library / Special Collections / Rare books: N40.1.S8375 M6
Knoxville Public Library : Frank H. McClung Museum / Special Collections / Rare books: ND237 .S76 A4 1968
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
CARL SUBLETT (American, b. 1919, Johnson Co., KY; d. 2008, Maine)
Sublett was one of East Tennessee’s most prolific and versatile artists. The Kentucky native came to Knoxville in 1954 and soon
became an influential painting instructor at the University of Tennessee. He found endless inspiration in the Maine coastline, East
Tennessee countryside and many other outdoor painting locations. Sublett shifted effortlessly from abstraction to precise realism
throughout his long career and by the 1970s turned to watercolor as his primary medium.
Carl Sublett, Storm Beach II, 1964, Watercolor and ink on paper
Although Sublett produced many large oil canvases, he specialized in watercolor paintings in which he explored nature’s nuances
in a broad range of styles and techniques. This scene depicts the shoreline along Deer Isle, Maine, the artist’s favorite painting
location. Sublett was a versatile, prolific artist from Kentucky who came to Knoxville in the early 1950s to become one of the
founding members of the University of Tennessee’s School of Art. He was also a core member of the Knoxville Seven, a group of
forward-looking artists active between 1959 and 1965 who were among the first in East Tennessee to experiment with abstract
expressionism. The Knoxville Museum of Art presented a large exhibition of Sublett’s watercolors in 1991.
Carl Sublett, Center Fold, 1979, Watercolor on paper
In this muted watercolor, Sublett places emphasis on his paper support, folding and puncturing it in order to give it a pronounced
sculptural character.
Carl Sublett, Keeper’s House, Port Clyde, Maine, early 1990’s, Watercolor on paper
Knoxville artist Carl Sublett’s late career is defined by site-specific, descriptive watercolors such as Keeper’s House. The spot
depicted was one of the artist’s favorite painting locations, and situated less than a mile from his studio. This work was painted
during a period in which he was experimenting with washes of cobalt blue. One of the easel painters in the left foreground may
represent a self-portrait, since Sublett used a stand-up easel of similar design.
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Carl Sublett, Winter Run, 1976, Watercolor and sand on paper
In this composition, Sublett mixes sand into his paint in order to give greater texture and richness to the image surface.
Carl Sublett, Night Tree, 1962, Ink, watercolor, and mixed media on paper
Carl Sublett, Nature Series # 290, 1990, Watercolor on paper
Carl Sublett, Nature Series # 390, 1990, Watercolor on paper
www.bennettgalleries.com/art-details/327 / Bennett Galleries, Knoxville, TN / Sublett bio., images & artist statement
www.carlsublett.net / Carl Sublett artist website
www.gallerybythesea.com/carl_sublett.htm / Gallery by the Sea, KY / Sublett bio. , images & artist statement
http://marshallgallery.net/collections/5858 / Mars Hall Gallery, Maine / Sublett brief bio. & watercolor images (search: main page >
artists > Carl Sublett)
www.metropulse.com/news/2008/jun/11/watercolor-story / Metropulse / A Watercolor Story by Chris Buckner / review of Sublett’s
retrospective “Image Tracks” Downtown Gallery 2008
Miscellaneous: Carl Sublett. Tennessee State Museum, Nashville. Exhibit Catalogue,1984. Available @ KMA Sarah Kramer
Library / ND237.S92.
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LEE WALTON (American, b.1974)
Lee Walton, 8 Games from Sunday, Feb 25, 2006/NBA – All Minutes Played 1 Rectangle = 1 Minute, 2006
Colored Ink on paper (papier colle) 35.5 x 55 inches
Walton is a California-born artist and former college baseball player whose mixed media drawings initially appear to be based on
abstract compositional theories. However, they are actually coded translations of professional sporting events. Before each
game, Walton creates a specific color-coded mark for every possible event or outcome. As action on the field unfolds, he makes
marks on sections of paper in sequence so that the flow of the game dictates the final composition. These sections of paper are
later arranged in rows to create a single drawing. In this way, Walton’s approach represents an unexpected union of sports,
chance, time, performance, and an artistic process free of conscious control.
http://www.knoxart.org/index.html Knoxville Museum of Art / New Directions in Drawing, 2004
http://www.leewalton.com/index.html Lee Walton artist website
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Walton Wikipedia > Lee Walton / artist overview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIGxhLdNZoQ You-tube online video / Lee Walton Making Drawings (2min 57sec)
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ANTON WEISS (American, b. 1936)
Anton Weiss, Interlude, circa 1985, Watercolor on paper
Weiss grew up in the former Yugoslavia and Austria and at an early age was inspired to become an artist after watching a
documentary on Michelangelo. Much of his youth was spent fleeing the Nazis and struggling for survival in concentration camps
before escaping to the United States in 1951. He and his family settled in Springfield, Tennessee. He studied with Hans
Hofmann, a renowned abstract expressionist, and applied much of what he learned in developing his own approach to abstraction
and color theory. Weiss is a founding member of the Tennessee Watercolor Society, and continues to paint at his home in
Leiper’s Creek, Tennessee.
http://bennettgalleries.com/art-details/324 Bennett Galleries, Knoxville / Anton Weiss paintings
“Over the course of recorded history man has felt compelled to record his reactions and insight in visual form. The artist is always
searching for something new, individual form of expressions. Thus art changes, rapidly or slowly. The task is to make a personal
statement that also has value as communication. The artist always hopes that the presentation has validity to the viewer.
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My work incorporates materials that exhibit characteristics of residual energy. Out of this, taking the energy inherent in phase
forms, I combine them in such a way as to produce order and unity, but retain remnants of the power that will provide an emotional
recognition in the reviewer.”
http://www.leiperscreekgallery.com/AntonWeissBio.html Leiper’s Creek Gallery / Anton Weiss artist bio.
http://www.leiperscreekgallery.com/LeipersCreekVideo.html Leiper’s Creek Gallery / Anton Weiss You-Tube video
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BETSY WORDEN (American, 1935 - 2006)
Betsy Worden, Summit Hill Gate, 1974, Watercolor on paper
Worden was a prominent Knoxville artist, teacher, and patron of the arts who is perhaps best known for her achievements in
watercolor and printmaking. This painting stems from her interest in Knoxville’s early architecture—specifically her desire to
preserve a visual record of historic homes in the Summit Hill area prior to their demolition to make way for Summit Hill Drive. As
Worden explained, this work “provides a fleeting glance of an earlier time and a vision of things to come.”
http://www.knoxalliance.com/air.html Knoxville Arts & Culture Alliance / Betsy Worden Memoria Artist Residency
Betsy Worden, an artist, teacher, and Knoxville Civic Leader, was perhaps best known for her works in watercolor and weaving,
and she contributed greatly to Knoxville’s visual arts community in numerous ways throughout her life. She received her BA in
Fine Arts from the University of Tennessee and did post-graduate studies at Atlanta School of the Art, Arrowmont School of Arts
and Crafts, and the University of Tennessee. A painter, tapestry weaver, and printmaker, she was a longtime instructor at the
Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, and she taught watercolor classes for the Knoxville Museum of Art. A leader in
the Knoxville arts community, Worden served on the boards of many arts organizations, including the Arts & Culture Alliance and
the Art Market Gallery, which she co-founded. She also co-founded the Community School of the Arts in Knoxville. She served as
a past president of the Knoxville Watercolor Society and actively participated in the Tennessee Watercolor Society, the Art and
Antiques Gallery, Southern Highland Craft Guild, the Foothills Craft Guild, and Tennessee Women in the Arts.