Suzanne Kanatsiz, Ceremonial Cloak II

SUZANNE KANATSIZ

Ceremonial Cloak II
Mixed Media, 1994

Suzanne Kanatsiz works in sculpture, installation, and drawing. Her forms are wide-ranging; relief panels, earthworks, steel sculptures, and more. Her experimental and conceptual work makes use of diverse combinations of organic and manufactured/machined materials. Many of these works have primitive features, and are created via slow, laborious processes. Concentric rings, circles, and spheres done in repetition are prominent in her designs. Ceremonial Cloak is an example of that type of work. The principal material of the cloak is from pine cones, which were an important part of the Washoe Paiute Indian culture, and the pattern of the piece is repetitive and concentric. It was made during a time when Kanatsiz was living in Nevada.

Born in Detroit, Suzanne Kanatsiz grew up in San Diego and earned a BFA in painting from San Diego State University on 1984 and an MFA in sculpture from San Jose State University in 1988. Arabic text has long been a part of her work due to her Turkish heritage; Kanatsiz is one of two daughters born to an American mother and a Turkish father. She has lived and traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East, including a teaching appointment at Sabanci University in Istanbul. She has also traveled to Australia, Canada, Mexico, Scotland, Korea, and other places in order to observe/learn the culture of the native peoples of the region and incorporate that into her artwork. She has taught sculpture at the University of Nevada Reno and at Weber State University in Utah. She currently lives in Ogden with her husband and son.

Quotes from an interview by a writer and friend of hers, Jordan Clary:

Question by Clary: “A lot of your art seems to be inspired by tribal societies. What is it about that that you try to convey with your work?”

Kanatsiz: “Indigenous peoples had a highly sophisticated relationship to the arts and its transformative powers. I am interested in imbuing that power in my work. Also different landscapes reflect my inner landscape. I love the ancient feel of a dry desert, the expansiveness of that is powerful.”

Information from “A” Gallery of Salt Lake City, The Utah Artists Project, and artist-at-large.com interview, 2007.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

Mildred Bryan Brooks, Twilight

MILDRED BRYAN BROOKS
1901-1995

Twilight
Etching, 20th Century

Mildred Brooks was born in Missouri and came with her family to Long Beach, California in 1907 when she was six years old. She graduated with honors from USC. She went on to study at Otis and Chouinard Art Institutes. Her teachers/mentors were Tolles Chamberlin (also in this show), and Arthur Millier, who steered her toward printmaking, with an emphasis on etching. She began her career designing Christmas cards but soon acquired her own printing press and began working on her own. She taught at Stickley Art School in Pasadena, the Los Angeles Art Institute, and Pomona College. Her work won awards nationally, including one from the Chicago Society of Etchers – their first ever awarded to a woman or a Westerner! During the Depression she was able to support her family completely with her printmaking. She is best known for her etchings of trees.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

William Franklin Jackson, Untitled (Landscape)

WILLIAM FRANKLIN JACKSON
1850-1936

Untitled (landscape)
Oil on linen, 1920-late 1930s

William Jackson was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa. His family came to Sacramento by covered wagon in 1863. He went to San Francisco to study art at the San Francisco School of Design with Virgil Williams and Benoni Irwin. He kept a studio in San Francisco until 1880 when he moved back permanently to Sacramento.

Jackson was a plein air painter known for depicting rolling hills, spring wildflowers and vistas of the American River and Donner Lake. He was a close friend of the painter William Keith. He won gold medals wherever his work was shown.

Jackson is perhaps best known for his role at the Crocker Art Museum. When the Crocker family deeded their art gallery/home to the City of Sacramento in 1884, Jackson became curator and director of the art school. He worked there for fifty-two years, until his death in 1936.

--Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley

Trude Hanscom, "The Tempest"

TRUDE HANSCOM

The Tempest
Drypoint, 1952

Trude Hanscom was known primarily as a graphic artist who practiced her art in California. She was born Gertrude Fandrich in Oil City, PA on December 6, 1890.
She grew up in Waterloo, NY, and studied art at Syracuse University. About 1930 she moved to California, where she married Charles Hanscom. Her etchings, aquatints, and drypoints depict southern California landscapes. She did a series of works on Los Angeles’ Chinatown, and drew portraits and Indian genre scenes during trips to New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. She sketched Mexican children on frequent visits there. Trude Hanscom studied art at many schools in California, including Scripps College, Claremont, Otis Art Institute, and several universities in the Los Angeles area. While working on her own art, Hanscom taught art to private students and in the public schools of Alhambra, Glendale and San Gabriel. She exhibited works in galleries and shows including the Golden Gate International Exposition, Society of American Etchers in New York, the Royal Academy in London, and various art venues in California. In 1965 she received an honorary life membership in the Society of American Graphic Artists. Trude Hanscom died in a Santa Barbara retirement home on June 7, 1975.

Biographical information is from AskART and The Annex Galleries, online.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

Mary Frances Wildman, "Sierra Juniper"

MARY FRANCES WILDMAN
1899-1967

Sierra Juniper
Etching, 1937

Mary F. Wildman was born October 10, 1899, in Indianapolis. She lived in Philadelphia and then moved to Los Angeles to study art at Otis Art Institute. In the 1930s she moved to Palo Alto and earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University. She was active as an artist in California, and her etching subjects were of the High Sierra, Fallen Leaf Lake, and landscapes around the Stanford area. Wildman exhibited at galleries in San Francisco and Los Angeles and held memberships in several artists’ clubs, including the Palo Alto Art Club, Society of Etchers, and Philadelphia Print Club. She died on the Monterey peninsula on April 27, 1967.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

Ruth Doris Swett, "Carolina Long Leafed Pines"

RUTH DORIS SWETT

Carolina Long Leafed Pines
Drypoint, 1938

Ruth Doris Swett was an artist who was active during the 1930s making drypoint and etchings. She was a native of Southern Pines, North Carolina, and much of her work involved the pine needle motif. In December 1941 the local newspaper of Southern Pines, The Pilot, reported that its new nameplate was designed by Ruth Doris Swett from her original drawing of pine needles, a compass, and a map of Moore County.

Not much is know about Swett but Who Was Who in American Art, by Peter Hastings Falk, lists her as an etcher born in 1901 in North Carolina and notes that she had studied at Chouinard Art Institute in California. The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue has three prints by Swett: Florida Pine, The Lone Palm, and Long Leaf Pine, all of which were done in the 1930s.

--Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley

F. Tolles Chamberlin, "Near Pasadena"

F. TOLLES CHAMBERLIN
1873-1961

Near Pasadena
Drypoint, 1947

Tolles Chamberlin was born in San Francisco but spent much of his youth in Vermont and Connecticut. His first art lessons were with Dwight Tryon at the Wadsworth Atheneum. In New Rochelle he became proficient at watercolor renderings for a landscape architect. He continued this work in New York City and attended night classes at the Art Students League. He won a four year scholarship to study in Rome. On his return to New York he taught for several years at the Beaux Arts School of Design.

In 1919 Tolles and his family moved to Pasadena. He taught at the Otis Art Institute and later co-founded the Chouinard Art Institute. He also taught watercolor rendering at the USC School of Architecture. He worked in pastels, oil, watercolor, sculpture, drawing and etching. He may be best known, however, as an extremely gifted and influential teacher. (One of his pupils is Mildred Brooks, also in this show). Tolles died in Los Angeles in 1961.

--Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley

Arthur A. Hoeber, "Early Evening"

ARTHUR A. HOEBER
1854-1950

Early Evening
Oil on linen, 1910

Arthur Hoeber was born in 1854 in New York City. He studied at the Art Students League under Beckwith. Later he went to Paris to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts under Gerome. His work was so highly thought of in Paris that he was juried into the 1882 Salon. His favorite subjects were tidal wetlands in Cape Cod, New Jersey , and Long Island. He belonged to the New Jersey art colony in Nutley. He is generally considered a Tonalist.

Hoeber is best known as a writer. He was art critic for the New York Times and the New York Globe and wrote several books. He died in Nutley, NJ in 1950.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

Alfred Heber Hutty, "An Avenue of Oaks"

ALFRED HEBER HUTTY
1877(8)-1954(8)

An Avenue of Oaks
Etching, 20th Century

Alfred Hutty was born and educated in Michigan, but he spent his adult life going between Woodstock, NY and Charleston, S.C. He moved to New York to work as a stained glass window designer for Tiffany Glass studios. He studied painting at the Art Students League with L. Birge Harrison (represented in our Wiegand collection), and soon became deeply involved with the Woodstock art colony. He and his wife moved to Charleston in 1919, and it was there that he became enthralled with etching. He set up a print studio there and went on to win nationwide awards for his etching. He was the first American to be elected to the British Society of Graphic Arts, and was a founding member of the Charleston Etchers Club. In Art and Artists of the South Boyd Sanders wrote “Hutty adapted readily to his new mode of expression...the rapid certainty of his bitten lines and the rich bloom and shimmer of his drypoints authoritatively declare his mastery of the medium.” He continued to work in oils and mural painting in addition to his etchings. Hutty returned to his home in Woodstock every summer until his death in the 1950s.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

Arthur Merton Hazard, Untitled (Mt. Whitney)

ARTHUR MERTON HAZARD
1872-1930

Untitled (Mt. Whitney)
Oil on canvas, 1927

Arthur Hazard was born in Bridgewater, Mass. He studied in Boston, Cincinnati, and Paris, with Frank Duveneck, the tonalist Joseph deCamp, and Henri Blanc. He spent most of his life in Boston where he was known for his superb portraits of Boston socialites and dignitaries., as well as his World War I paintings. Late in life he moved to California for his health. In Hollywood he continued to do portraits. But California also provided him with a new landscape, and he delighted in painting desert flowers and landscapes. His work is represented in the National American Art Museum, the Amon Carter, the Red Cross Museum, the California Historical Society and the Nevada Museum of Art.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

William S. Rice, "California Live Oak"

WILLIAM S. RICE
1873-1963

California Live Oak
Etching, undated

William Rice was born in Pennsylvania and studied at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art and the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia. In 1900 he moved to California and became Supervisor of Art in the Public Schools. He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1910, where he taught high school and college level art courses for thirty-six years. He was a talented artist in the Craftsman tradition, working in watercolor and oil, ceramics, copper and wood, but printmaking was his special skill. He mastered all its forms, and was best known for colored woodcuts (influenced by Japanese prints), and drypoints. He wrote three books on printmaking, and his work was exhibited widely, including a one-man show at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. Rice’s art work is represented in the National American Art Museum and the Library of Congress.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

Carl Henrik Jonnevold

CARL HENRIK JONNEVOLD
1856-1955

Untitled (landscape)
Oil on canvas, undated

Carl Jonnevold was born in Norway and came to the United States in his twenties. He painted all around the Northwest until 1887 when he settled in San Francisco. He had no formal art education. In his early fifties he visited Paris where he was drawn to the Barbizon painters’ subdued palettes. His California landscapes from that time on showed this influence. His preference was to paint in late afternoon for the subtle effect of the shadows.
By 1930 he was in deep financial trouble. After a violent dispute with his landlord which resulted in a two month jail sentence, he disappeared from San Francisco. He lived in obscurity for the next twenty-five years. He died at the age of ninety-nine.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

Wim Wenders, "Meteorite Crater, West Australia"

Meteorite Crater, West Australia
Large Scale Aerial Photograph, 1988

Wim Wenders is known internationally as a film maker from Germany. By way of scouting via small aircraft for movie set locations for his films, his photographs of these sites eventually led to museum exhibits of his very large scale (typically over fifteen feet in length) aerial photography. A major photographic survey of his “Pictures from the Surface of the Earth” has toured museums world wide since 2001. Meteorite Crater was shot in West Australia on just such a scouting expedition. Difficult to reach by car, Meteorite Crater was on a map of Australia in a remote area west of Alice Springs. Wenders discovered the place on an aerial location survey, circled the enormous crater, landed on the dust strip next to it, and walked for an hour to get into the middle of the giant circle. Wenders claimed the aerial photograph documented the site as a meteorite crater. However, controversy surrounded the artist’s naming of the site. Apparently, the crater wasn’t created by a meteorite: it’s a naturally occurring bowl-shaped depression of land in the earth.

Ernst Wilhelm Wenders was born in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1945. Wenders studied medicine (1963-64), and philosophy (1964-65), before interrupting his academic studies to became a painter in 1966. By 1967 he was working as a film critic and producing several short films, and this continued until the 1980s. In 19882 he moved to New York and has since then become involved in producing and directly hundreds of films through various cinema companies. Two of his best known films are Wings of Desire and The Buena Vista Social Club. He currently lives in Los Angeles and Berlin with his wife, Donata, a photographer.

Quote by the artist: (from Wenders’ official website)
“Bigger is never better per se, nor more beautiful. But some of these landscapes and places that I photographed deserved nothing else but the biggest possible prints. I was limited by the size of the photo paper, otherwise, I would have gone even bigger. To understand these places, you have to immerse yourself in them.”

--Lois Smalley

January 27 Docent Meeting Canceled

I learned that the art trip to the Crocker Art Museum that has been scheduled for some time, and which I understand at least 10 docents are signed up to participate in, conflicts directly with the time and date of our next docent meeting on the 27th of January.

Because of this, I think it’s best if we cancel the meeting altogether, as trying to reschedule it will not get us

very far. Please do note, however, that the training content that we would have addressed on the 27th is important – we’ll need to address it on the regular training day on February 9, in addition to the content planned for that day already.

Thanks so much—enjoy the trip to Sacramento, those of you who are going.

Did You Know :: Jamie Brunson

Jamie Brunson :

• Studied at the California College of the Arts (BFA, 1978), and at Mills College (MFA, 1983).
• Produced pattern-based paintings from 1995-2004 that were inspired by ornamental motifs she had seen in her travels to ancient historic and religious sites around the world, and by her kundalini meditation practice.
• Teaches painting at the San Francisco Art Institute and at San Francisco State University.
• Works also as a writer and critic, and has published essays in Artweek, Art Issues, and Artspace.
• Works also as a curator, having organized exhibitions of West Coast pattern-based painting that opened at the Mills College Art Museum in Oakland, CA, in 2001.
• Fascinated by global religious traditions. In fact, the title of her work in our collection, Krishna Lila, refers to the devotional music of Hindu India. The Sanskrit word for Krishna, krsna, means “black,” “dark,” or “dark blue”—the color of the piece.
• Encourages contemplation and spiritual reflection. She is interested in both the spiritual implications of patterns as well as the role they play in cultural transmission.
  

Of special note:
Nevada Museum of Art Volunteer Meg Watson made the Brunson acquisition possible, in memory of her mother.