Wisconsin Master Series: Ruth Grotenrath
On View at the Charles Allis Art Museum
December
14-January 25
Opening Reception: Sunday, December 14, 1-4 p.m.
Panel Discussion-WPA Project and Wisconsin Art:
Wednesday, January 7, 7 p.m.
Ruth Grotenrath, best known for her intimate and superbly colored still life paintings, is the fourth artist featured in the Wisconsin Master Series. Grotenrath, a late Milwaukee native, had a commercially successful career which lasted 55 years. The Charles Allis Art Museum, 1801 N. Prospect Ave., is proud that the next installment of this annual series is a retrospective of her works.
"Ruth should be remembered as an important Wisconsin Artist because her unique combination of self-persistence and social awareness; inner-peace and outer concern," said Sarah Haberstroh, Manager of Exhibitions and Collections. "Her work is as outward, visual expression of these qualities and I hope to pay tribute to them through this exhibition."
In reference to her artistic vision and approach as a painter Grotenrath said, "You must see poetically." Her vision was articulated with grace and reverence; her work celebrated everyday wonders. Her depictions of interior spaces and mundane objects were regularly transformed into the exquisite through her mastery of color, expressive line, and representational, though increasingly, abstract interpretation of pattern.
"My work did not sell, except for a little here and there, until 1965, but I wasn't painting to sell. That isn't my reason for painting," Grotenrath once said. "I just want to get down what I'm seeing," which is exactly what she accomplished early and continuously in her career. Whether painting the controversial WPA-commissioned mural for the Hudson post office, one of her 62 varieties of wild plants, or the reappearing "White Pitcher," her interpretation was always personal and marked by keen and obviously intimate observation.
Mostly drawing from her immediate environment, Grotenrath created complex color compositions that expressed warmth, cheerfulness, femininity and order-not unlike qualities that defined her own personality. Influenced by Matisse, Van Gogh, Japanese culture and textiles, later paintings were produced with delicate pencil line drawings mostly concealed by casein, valued for its opacity, as opposed to the oil and tempera of her early work. Her work took off commercially in the 1960s as a long-standing relationship with the Bradley Galleries was forged. Simultaneous was Grotenrath's shift toward smaller works.
Ruth Grotenrath was born in 1912 and studied with well-known artists Robert von Neumann, Gustave Moeller and Elsa Ulbricht at what is now the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She received her Bachelor of Arts in 1933 and married fellow artist and friend Schomer Lichtner the following year. Grotenrath participated in many important solo and group exhibitions, often with her husband, with whom she shared "an allegiance to the color and decorative surfaces of Matisse."
The Wisconsin Masters Series pays tribute each year to one deceased Wisconsin Artist that has made a major contribution to the history of Visual Arts in Wisconsin. The series reinforces our mission to support local talent by sponsoring exhibitions that feature Wisconsin artists.