VERMILLION ARTIST WINS $20,000 GRANT

Klaire Lockheart was teaching modern art at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, when she created a lecture on the works of Lee Krasner, a noted abstract expressionist painter. “I learned about the Pollocak-Krasner Foundation grants, and told my students they should apply. Then I thought, maybe I should apply for this.”

One year later Lockheart found that she was the first South Dakotan to ever win the grant. She hopes she’s not the last. “One of the exciting things about the grant is that I have friends ask how they can apply. I hope since we have had one person from South Dakota accepted, it will increase and raise our profile.”

The Pollock-Krasner Foundation gave 97 artists $3,066,000 during the 2023-2024 grant cycle. Lockheart received $20,000. Other grantees are from such far-flung locations as Spain, India and New York.

Lockheart’s application included an explanation of her project, a timeframe, the size of the paintings and where she would display the art.

A research component took her to New York City last summer. She toured the Metropolitan Museum of Art with curator Laura Corey and focused on researching 19th century figurative artwork. “I specialize in academic old fashioned style figure painting and I’m purposely painting in a style popular in the mid-1800s in Europe. That’s a time when women weren’t allowed to go to art academies and overall in the United States and Europe, women weren’t allowed to take figure drawing classes until about 100 years ago.”

Lockheart hopes to make up for lost time. “Museums are full of artwork by men featuring women,” she says. “I started researching, getting to see these old European paintings, and that is specifically of European men featuring the female form.” Lockheart developed her project on what she calls Brodalisque, a play on the word odalisque, a French term referring to nude, lounging women.

“I love working with a parody,” she says. Her sketches show men in the poses of the 19th century women. “Most will think it’s funny but I’m using the same positions and techniques.”