When West Bend's Museum of Wisconsin Art (MWA) opened their retrospective this past weekend titled “The Yin and the Yang: Schomer Lichtner & Ruth Grotenrath, A Retrospective,” the MWA also released two new biographies published in honor of the exhibition. A Celebration: The Art and Life of Ruth Grotenrath and In The Moment: The Art and Life of Schomer Lichtner (both written by Susan Montgomery) were delivered fresh from the press for the two receptions on Friday morning and Sunday afternoon.
The biographies detail the artists' careers that began when Gustave Moeller, another Wisconsin painter originally from New Holstein, introduced them in a Milwaukee college art class when Ruth was 19 and Schomer was 27. Schomer fell brush and easel in love with Ruth, although he worried the age difference might cause concerns. However, their entire lives illustrate how their unique talents develped separately and an ability to survive as working artists, even during the depression. What will their legacy be in the future?
Several artworks from Roosevelt's WPA (Work Progress Administration) program kept Grotenrath and Lichtner earning a salary during these dire times. Approximately $94.00 dollars a month (barely enough to pay for a cell phone in 2011) enabled the couple that had married in 1934 to live comfortably. From this WPA period, a marvelous mural still remains at the Sheboygan Post Office, a testament to that economically depressing decade and their considerable talents.
In the beginning as happy newlyweds, an apartment rented on Downer Avenue housed the couple in those early years. A small apartment where each kept a private art studio for their painting. Apparently, while Ruth and Schomer were each other's best inspiration and support in producing paintings, the watchword was: “No comments on the other's artwork unless asked.”
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It must have worked because there was a future, and in that future the biographies explain Grotenrath and Lichtner moved to a family home on Maryland Avenue in Milwaukee with Helen, a sister and her family. In good time, an only son Peter was born in 1943. Photographs from the biographies describe their family life, including pictures of baby Peter, and the colorful interior to the home viewed as “an artistic environment” where they kept objects both artists admired and loved. Litchner constructed much of the furniture for their home, including a five-sided orange table that Grotenrath incorporated into her numerous paintings, which also went into the house of a collector.
A lovely garden in their backyard designed by Laura Otto kept nature close at hand, a constant muse for Grotenrath and Lichtner. The flowers observed from outside Ruth's kitchen window often found there way onto Grotenrath's Oriental papers in multiple images that constantly delighted the artist and her viewers. In the '70's, it was said Milwaukee's Bradley Gallery could hardly keep Ruth's paintings on the walls and the artwork would go out as soon as the images came in. These collectors, whether known or not, had preserved the Grotenrath-Lichtner legacy seen today at the MWA, with the retrospective combining contributions from both private and public collections.
The two published biographies fill the pages with paintings and photographs that describe an idyllic artist's life in Wisconsin. Here in the city on Maryland Avenue, or rurally on “The Farm,” the Grotnrath and Lichtner summer retreat. The approximately 200 acres in the Kettle Moraine near Holy Hill had been in Grotenrath's family, and the artist's were said to paint every surface they could on the home and barn to create an artist's haven, for themselves and other well-known painters that were invited on a weekend afternoon to work outside. Never overly rich or flamboyant, the two artists merely enjoyed their art, loving each other and working in Wisconsin.
These two detailed and personal biographies present many delightful facts and artworks from Grotenrath and Lichtner and may be purchased at Amazon.com, Milwaukee's Elaine Erickson Gallery and West Bend's Museum of Wisconsin Art. The MWA will also be hosting “The Moment” on Thursday, May 26 (5-8 p.m.) in conjunction with the Lichtner-Grotenrath retrospective, a special program named “The Vibrant Lives of Artists.” During the evening's round table discussion, friends and colleagues of the couple will speak to their memories and revisit their artistic life and how to keep their legacy alive in the next century.
The MWA retrospective continues through July 10 and for further information on the publications contact: www.wisconsinart.org or www.elaineericksongallery.com
