The exhibition “Wisconsin Moderns” at Dean Jensen Gallery (759 N. Water St.) offers a sophisticated return to 20th-century art with six prestigious state artists whose inspiration descended from Brancusi, Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso. For fledging art collectors unfamiliar with these modern masters and their exceptional art, the exhibition presents an engaging survey with a Wisconsin perspective.
The exhibit’s first painting makes for an impressive opening, as Jon Schueler’s I Sing Reds in the Blues lyrically floats color across the canvas in swirling warm reds and cool blue hues. Viewers will be swept into his atmospheric brush strokes.
Further along the gallery wall hangs Karl Knaths’ black-and-white lithograph Double Self-Portrait.Knaths’ print revisits Cubist and German Expressionist ideals with fractured mirror images.
A few steps away, the exhibit presents several lithographs by Mark Tobey, including Morning Grass and Face,which exemplify how simple, short curved lines can create powerful emotions in the hands of a master. Face blurs the boundaries between features in man and beast amid a flurry of black, hair-like lines.
Carl Holty’s modern figurative painting Untitled, striking in its subject and size, commands a space above the stairwell. The oil on canvas mingles elements from Matisse and Picasso in an apricot, espresso and ivory palette.
A small gallery in the backroom exhibits the show’s only living artist, Fred Berman, who paints fleeting impressions of dimly lit outdoor scenes. Paint strokes flicker on canvas to define a figure hidden in the darkness in Rain Shadows and Winter Landscapes. Each painting recalls holding smooth, earthy pebbles in your hands during duska sensual moment before the day fades into night.
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Lucia Stern makes use of bright colors in playful, geometric, oil-on-canvas compositions. Her wood sculpture Bird in Space demonstrates the elegant simplicity seen in Brancusi’s distinctive style.
Jensen, who oversees the exhibition with careful attention, is very willing to educate viewers about the wonders of non-representational art, the modern movement and these Wisconsin masters.
“Wisconsin Moderns” continues through Nov. 27 at Dean Jensen Gallery.
