The art in thisexhibit ranges from the 1940s to the ’60s, with works primarily hanging salon-stylein the museum’s Mezzanine Gallery. Dozens of Czebotar’s small pictures mix with10 larger oils on canvas. Most every image is unframed, untitled andunaccompanied by a description regarding the medium, leaving viewers wonderinghow to decipher Czebotar’s artwork. Indeed, the exhibition appears incomplete.
Even if Czebotar hadleft his paintings unnamed, the museum could have chosen to identify them, asit did with the three works highlighted in its newsletter. This would haveprovided the exhibition with more context. Additional information explainingprevious art experiences would validate several walls scattered floor toceiling with small works on cardboard, masonite and some unknown surfaces. Thisunorganized approach leaves the viewer with an unsophisticated impression ofthe artist and, more importantly, the museum. Also, applying greaterselectivity to the sketches in this exhibit would allow viewers to betterunderstand the artist.
Only at the end ofthe exhibit does a glass case display the photographs from which the paintercreated his artwork: prints from Washingtonstatespecifically, its rugged shorelines, often stacked with driftwood. Withsuch minimal documentation, it is difficult to assess Czebotar’s career orthese particular paintings.
Two of Czebotar’sbetter efforts are large paintings hanging near the balcony in the southerncorner of the gallery. One image portrays the craggy, mountainous coastlinewith oblique visages carved into rock, contrasting inanimate and organic forcesin nature. Alongside this painting an abstract rendering in gray and hazy bluereveals angular driftwood protruding into the shore.
While Czebotarapparently resisted transforming the color, light and shadow in thesepaintings, he portrayed stylized skeletons in an environment largely untouchedby civilization.
The Haggerty shouldconsider supplying more information on Czebotar’s career, which includescityscapes and landscapes exhibited at New York galleries. This would place the artist withinthe larger framework of Wisconsinand American art and would allow viewers to fully appreciate his efforts.
