Mary Nohl and Lucia Stern, Milwaukee Artists Reunited

×

Expand

Image:Portrait Society Gallery of Contemporary Art

Mary Nohl drawing - feet

Mary Nohl

Mary Nohl (1914-2001) was misunderstood through life but in death became an inspiration to local artists. Lucia Stern (1895-1987) stood at the center of the Milwaukee art milieu and in death was forgotten. They crossed paths occasionally and are reunited at Portrait Society.

The exhibition’s title, “Mary Nohl and Lucia Stern: Midcentury Mavericks,” locates the two artists in time, albeit Nohl was more maverick that Stern. “Lucia was a great admirer of Mary’s jewelry,” says Portrait Society director Debra Brehmer. “Lucia’s work was very much part of the art world. Mary came from the art world but was more isolated. They were two women who explored broadly with materials and media—sticks, glass, mobiles, paintings. They were super inquisitive.”

Nohl was known for many years as the occupant of “the witch’s house.” The yard of her home in Fox Point brimmed with modernist-primitive stone sculptures, benign configurations that somehow unsettled the philistines. She was disregarded as eccentric and solitary, but the bulk of her work is now housed at the Kohler Art Center and her name is attached to an annual fellowship for emerging artists.

By contrast, Stern was friends with the Bauhaus’ Laszlo Maholy-Nagy, sat on the board of the Milwaukee Art Institute and contributed to the founding of the Haggerty Museum of Art. After Stern’s death, her artwork was stored and forgotten—and might have landed in the dumpster if not for a sharp-eyed antiquarian who spotted the trove at auction.

Nohl and Stern shared common roots in the modernist fascination with collage, found objects and the undistilled imagery of “primitive” cultures. The Portrait Society exhibit numbers several of Stern’s vertical color fields as well as works made by layering painted paper figures and colored fabric mesh across fabric or canvas backdrops, the visible stitching a component of her geometric compositions. The anthropomorphic figures in some of Stern’s artworks are rampant and triumphant. One object was formed by mounting wooden pieces on a velvet-covered woodblock to form a humanoid figure.

Nohl’s painting, Swimmers, conveys grace and motion with a sense of flow. The exhibit also includes several of the table-top ceramics she produced in the late 1940s-early ‘50s in an effort to find a market for her work. They are whimsical fantasies of midcentury taste: striding horse-like figures, lamps, a church, a bottle with a cork and a blue wagon with multiple candle holders. Many of Nohl’s late 1990s color line drawings are displayed—whimsical images of clowns with balloons, smiling faces, happy people—the outcome of an artist with immense joy.

At least in the photographs chosen for the show’s press release, the women could not have been more different. Nohl poses casually in paint-splattered pants while Stern, in furs and jewels, looks ready for a gala at the Met. But both women produced thoughtfully detailed work, precise yet imaginative, free from the bonds of everyday realism. “Nohl vs. Stern” is far from a comprehensive overview of either artist, an undertaking that would demand a space much larger than Portrait Society’s three small galleries. Most of the pieces are from a private collection and are unlikely to be seen together again—or seen again at all. “Nohl vs. Stern” is a rare opportunity to view the achievement of two remarkable Milwaukee artists from the last century.

“Nohl vs. Stern” is on view through March 19 at Portrait Society Gallery of Contemporary Art, 207 E. Buffalo St., Suite 526.

×

1 of 3

Expand

Image: Portrait Society Gallery of Contemporary Art

Lucia Stern

Lucia Stern

×

2 of 3

Expand

Image: Portrait Society Gallery of Contemporary Art

Lucia Stern

Lucia Stern

×

3 of 3

Expand

Image: Portrait Society Gallery of Contemporary Art

Mary Nohl

Mary Nohl

Prev

Next