Karin Clarke Gallery proudly presents a compelling range of work from the local art legend Maude I. Kerns. Most of the pieces in this exhibit, many of which are being shown for the very first time, are from the collection of Maude Kerns’ great niece, Leslie Brockelbank. The exhibit also includes several works selected from the Maude Kerns Art Center’s collection and the Tamkin Collection, including a wonderful depression era watercolor and some large non-objective oils, the style for which Kerns was most well known.
Maude I. Kerns was a pioneering modernist painter, arts educator, and one of the founders of the Eugene Art Center in 1950, now named the Maude Kerns Art Center. Kerns studied art education at Columbia University (1904-1906), and then spent time in Europe, where she was exposed to and influenced by the works of Kandinsky and Mondrian. She became the first head of the University of Oregon’s Art Education Department in 1922, a position she retained for 25 years, until her retirement. In 1928 she traveled around the world, including a three month visit to Japan with her close friend Gertrude Bass Warner, founder of the University of Oregon Museum since renamed the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. In the1930’s, she began spending summers studying with Hans Hoffman and Alexander Archipenko, and her style became increasingly less realistic, and more non-objective. From 1942 to 1951 she showed her work at what is now the Guggenheim Museum in New York. During this time her non-objective paintings traveled around the United States and Europe, and she exhibited with artists such as Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers.
Kerns’ paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, the Tacoma Art Museum, the Museum of Northwest Art, the Portland Art Museum, the Hallie Ford Museum, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum, the Microsoft Corporation, as well as numerous private collections.
This exhibit includes large and small abstract works, figurative paintings, drawings, prints, and striking landscapes.
Maude I. Kerns was a pioneering modernist painter, arts educator, and one of the founders of the Eugene Art Center in 1950, now named the Maude Kerns Art Center. Kerns studied art education at Columbia University (1904-1906), and then spent time in Europe, where she was exposed to and influenced by the works of Kandinsky and Mondrian. She became the first head of the University of Oregon’s Art Education Department in 1922, a position she retained for 25 years, until her retirement. In 1928 she traveled around the world, including a three month visit to Japan with her close friend Gertrude Bass Warner, founder of the University of Oregon Museum since renamed the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. In the1930’s, she began spending summers studying with Hans Hoffman and Alexander Archipenko, and her style became increasingly less realistic, and more non-objective. From 1942 to 1951 she showed her work at what is now the Guggenheim Museum in New York. During this time her non-objective paintings traveled around the United States and Europe, and she exhibited with artists such as Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers.
Kerns’ paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, the Tacoma Art Museum, the Museum of Northwest Art, the Portland Art Museum, the Hallie Ford Museum, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum, the Microsoft Corporation, as well as numerous private collections.
This exhibit includes large and small abstract works, figurative paintings, drawings, prints, and striking landscapes.