LaVerne Krause (1924 - 1987)
An Oregon Original: Paintings, Prints and Drawings from the Estate
Karin Clarke Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibit of work by LaVerne Krause. Krause was born in Portland, OR in 1924. She spent a large part of her childhood on a farm about 30 miles from Portland, introducing a love of landscape that would become an ongoing theme in her art. Upon graduation from high school, Krause received a tuition scholarship which allowed her to attend the University of Oregon, living inexpensively in a co-op, and working summers as a scaler at the shipyards. She studied art with Andy Vincent, David McCosh, and Jack Wilkinson, who became a close friend and mentor. Learning to credit one’s own experience was the most valuable of his teachings, she felt: “He felt that was the way things became genuine. I understand what he means by that so thoroughly that I feel that’s the way I operate.”*
Krause worked in a variety of mediums: oil, acrylic, watercolor, and printmaking, all of which are represented in this exhibit. Known as a colorist, she often used a palette knife because it could be wiped clean and did not result in the muddy colors of brushwork. Her acrylic paintings on linen are distinctive for their use of the tonality of the linen in the negative spaces she left unpainted. She preferred the earth tone of linen to white canvas because she could work in shades “above and below” it. She recognized many influences to her development, among them: Albers for his exploration of a single subject in series; Munch, Beckmann, and Kirschner for their prints; Rembrandt and Goya for their use of soft brushes on the lithography stone. Her subject matter ranged from architectural and industrial imagery to portraits and landscapes. She regarded her discovery of the “horizontality” of landscape to be a major breakthrough, leading to her abstract renderings of space in horizontal bands of color.
A major figure in Oregon art education, Krause began teaching at the Museum Art School, and later at the Arts and Crafts Society and the University of Oregon. She was instrumental in founding Oregon Artists Equity, helped to establish the Northwest Print Council, and was the founder of the printmaking program at the University of Oregon .
In 1980, Krause was presented with the Oregon Governor’s Art Award, the highest honor an Oregon artist can receive. Her work is included in the collections of the Portland Art Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, Portland State University, Reed College, the Oregon Historical Society, the University of Oregon, among many others.
In an interview , Krause sums up: “Everything I do is a little bit of a mystery, even to myself. I find that doesn’t bother me, I mean, the mystery of art is all very much part of it.”
*All quotes from Oral History Interview with LaVerne Krause, 1983, Apr. 17 - 18, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution