Thursday, September 20, 2012

Karl Schrag: Memories and Premonitions
SU Art Galleries

Price: Free
SU Art Galleries, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The Syracuse University Art Galleries is celebrating the career and life of Karl Schrag, American painter and printmaker, who would have been 100 years old this year. "Karl Schrag: Memories and Premonitions" is the first major examination of the artist's work since his death in 1995. The exhibition includes 70 original works of art by the influential artist, including paintings, prints and drawings.

Syracuse University has had a long and rewarding association with Karl Schrag and his family. It began in 1962 with a gift of a gouache painting titled "Coast in Autumn." Later the relationship grew with the first of numerous exhibitions, more gifts of artwork, and occasional lectures to students in the University's School of Art. Some 50 years later, S.U.'s art collection is much richer because of the 250-plus Karl Schrag artworks we maintain, and the continued support of Schrag Family.

2012 is also the centenary year of Karl Schrag's birth and gives us an opportunity to reinvestigate the talent, imagination, and sensitivity Schrag brought to his landscapes, still-life paintings, and portraits. A master of color, light, composition, and draftsmanship, Schrag captures nature and its great forces through an investigation of the lasting impressions each of us retain through experience. He engages his viewer with subtle mark making as well as with the bold calligraphic strokes so often associated with his work. His palette of almost Fauvist intensity adds dimension and passion to the landscapes he created.

Schrag's art career spanned more than 60 years and he had strong ties to the New York City art scene. After studying at the Art Students League, he joined S.W. Hayter's prestigious printmaking studio Atelier 17, working alongside artists Miró, Chagall and Jackson Pollock. Schrag was named director of the Atelier in 1950 and later began a long teaching career at Cooper Union, where he taught drawing and graphic arts from 1954-1968. Schrag had a direct impact on many of his students, including the Syracuse University-based artist Jerome Witkin. A student of Schrag at Cooper Union and a well-established contemporary artist, Witkin has commented on Schrags masterful handling of the landscape, and the evocative power of his vision.

The art selected for this exhibit will convey the artist's ability to see the landscape as if for the first time, the surprise of that special view, the recognition of his ability to feel wonder when looking at nature or figures, and the reward associated with seeing the world through his eyes.