I learned from her and others like her that a first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting, and that, generally, cooking or parenthood or making a home could be creative while poetry need not be; it could be uncreative.
Abraham Maslow
Toward a Psychology of Being
Daniel Weiss (1959-) is an Iowa-based artist and teacher who makes the most astonishing “assembled paintings” (or assemblages) from found materials. An exhibition of his work is on view at the University of Northern Iowa from August 25-September 21, 2008. Read more…
Pictured above on this page is Iowa-born sculptor Sherry Edmundson Fry (1879-1966) in his studio, as photographed by Peter A. Juley and Son. Born in Creston, Iowa, Fry studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and in Paris at the École des Beaux Arts. In 1907, he completed a bronze statue of Chief Mahaska (the 19th-century leader of a Native American tribe called the Ioways), which stands in the town square of Oskaloosa. In 1917, with New Hampshire painter Barry Faulkner, Fry was co-founder of the American Camouflage Corps. Photo from the Peter A. Juley & Son Collection, Photograph Archives, Smithsonian American Art Museum. Read more…
There is a delightful new volume about the life and artwork of artist-nun Sister Mary Corita Kent (1918-1986), born Frances Elizabeth Kent in Fort Dodge, Iowa. The book, titled Come Alive! The Spirited Art of Sister Corita, includes almost 90 examples of her uplifting silkscreen banners about controversial social issues of the 1960s, issues which finally caused her to leave the Catholic Church. Read more…
Mary Snyder Behrens, a Milwaukee-born artist who moved to Iowa in 1990, is increasingly admired for her astonishing, prize-winning miniature works called trammels. Read more…
After more than ten years in the making, a new huge book has been released on the origin and legacy of the pottery tradition at the Weimar Bauhaus, the most famous art school in history. Edited by Dean and Geraldine Schwarz, the title of this volume (now shipping) is Marguerite Wildenhain and the Bauhaus: An Eyewitness Anthology. The largest collection of Wildenhain’s work is at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. With 770 pages and 850 illustrations (full-color throughout), everyone who’s seen it agrees that it’s phenomenal. Read more…
New York painter Philip Evergood (1901-1973) spent two summers in Cedar Falls, Iowa, as a visiting artist in 1957-58. Although some found him annoying, the experience was largely productive, and resulted in a painting called Woman of Iowa. But he later had terrible problems when he returned to the East Coast. Read more…
One of Gertrude Stein’s closest, most enduring friends in Paris was an Iowa-born painter named William Edwards Cook (1881-1959). It was Cook who taught her how to drive, and they also vacationed together on the Spanish island of Majorca. When Cook’s father (a lawyer in Independence, Iowa) died in 1928, Cook used his inheritance to hire Le Corbusier, a then unknown architect, to design a starkly Modern home (called Villa Cook or Maison Cook) on the outskirts of Paris. Read more…
Surely, any serious book collector or cultural historian would agree that one of the best, most innovative book designers of the 20th century was Merle Armitage (1893-1975). Born in Mason City, Iowa, he went on to become the impresario or promotions manager for Anna Pavlova, Yvette Guibert, Amelita Galli-Curci, the Diaghilev Ballet and other famous performing artists, co-founder and manager of the Los Angeles Grand Opera Association, and 1950s art director of Look magazine. Read more…
Yes, it’s true. Salvador Dali really did visit Iowa. In 1952, he was a guest lecturer at the University of Northern Iowa (then Iowa State Teachers College), as a last minute replacement for Edward R. Murrow. Read more…
The PWAP (Public Works of Art Program) and the WPA (Works Progress Administration) were branches of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Depression-era New Deal assistance plan. The PWAP was a six-month program that provided jobs for nearly 4,000 unemployed American visual artists, who were paid from $26.50 to $42.50 per week for the enhancement of public buildings and parks. Anyone who applied to the program had to provide evidence of financial need and demonstrate their artistic skills to each state’s program director. The Iowa director of the PWAP was Grant Wood, and among the artists he commissioned were Robert Tabor (from Independence), Daniel Rhodes (Fort Dodge), and Lee Allen (Muscatine and Iowa City). Most of the art from this program can still be seen in post offices and public libraries throughout the state. Read more…
“This is a beautiful little book about William Cook, the man who taught Gertrude Stein to drive! But he was so much more and his life is presented …in this small press published book which in many ways can be called an artist’s book because of the attention to detail and style. A wonderful book, a wonderful gift!”
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