A u t um n
North
A rt
Dakota
A u c t io n
Museum
of
Art
North Dakota Museum of Art
AUTUMN
Art
Auction
Saturday, November 2, 2002 Wine and hors d’oeuvres 6:30 pm Auction begins at 8 pm
Music for the Auction
Auction Preview October 6 until auction time in the Museum galleries
Jazz ON TAP
Monday - Friday, 9 to 5 pm, Saturday - Sunday, 1 to 5 pm
Kris Eylands, guitar, Bob Cary, bass, Mike Blake, vibraphone
Preview Party Tuesday, October 29, 7 pm, Informal Gallery Talk by
Autumn Art Auction is
Museum Director, Laurel Reuter, about works in the Auction
Underwritten by Marshall Field’s Endorsing Sponsors, continued Patrons High Plains Reader North Dakota Public Radio WDAZ TV
Leaders A Touch of Magic on the Boardwalk, Chef NarDane Best Western Townhouse Clear Channel Radio Leighton Broadcasting Ramada Inn Rydell Auto Center, Inc. U.S. Bank
Endorsing Sponsors Altru Health System Blue Moose Bar & Grill Branigan’s Restaurants and Bars Bremer Bank Buffalo Commons Chamber Music Society Chester Fritz Auditorium John Clayburgh, D.D.S. Community National Bank Congress Inc.
Green Mill Restaurant and Bar James O. Hawley McKinnon Company Inc. Ellen McKinnon MeritCare Health System Museum Café State Farm Insurance Summit Brewing Company
Supporters Budget Inn Express Camrud Maddock Olson & Larson Ltd. Capital Resource Management CC Plus Interiors, Inc. Dakota Sales Company Inc. Farmers Insurance Group of Companies First Choice Medical Complex and Services Letnes, Swanson, Marshall, & Warcup Ltd. James S. McDonald, D.D.S. Minnesota Public Radio North Dakota Eye Clinic Northern Plumbing Supply Rite Spot Liquor Store Inc. Sanders 1907 Simonson Lumber & Hardware
From the Museum Director
Duaine Espegard, Auctioneer
This is our fourth Autumn Art Auction; the fourth year Madelyn
Duaine Espegard retired in June 2000 as Chief Executive Officer
Camrud has selected the work to be included. She begins months
and President of Bremer Bank in Grand Forks. Espegard began his
in advance, scouting new artists, attending exhibitions
banking career about thirty-five years ago and spent thirty-four of
throughout the region, and combing the proposals that flow into
those years with Bremer. He was CEO for twenty-four years and
the Museum from artists seeking exhibitions. Each year artists are
a regional vice president for fifteen years.
rotated out in order to make room for new work— but they are invited back in a year or two later. Every year the show becomes
Espegard was elected to his first term in the North Dakota
stronger, and more artists are introduced into our region.
Legislature in November, 2000, as District 43 Senator from Grand Forks. He has always had an interest in state politics and
We usually include artists who have an established relationship with the Museum. Every year, however, there are some we don’t know. They might be introduced to us by other artists. For example, Barton Benes suggested we look at MaJo Keleshian’s work. Sometimes I suggest Madelyn consider artists I am
has a great faith in the North Dakota citizen’s legislature. Duaine and Phyllis moved to Grand Forks in 1995. They have been visibly active in the community and the state, and they especially enjoy the North Dakota Museum of Art. They co-
including in a book, or an essay, or an exhibition that is still in
chaired the Museum’s annual Gala Benefit Dinner and Art
the planning stages. Shihoko Fukumoto came out of a book being
Auction in 1999-2000. This is Duaine’s second year as
published in England in 2003 for which I am writing a leading
auctioneer of the Autumn Art Auction, another volunteer
essay. Others, such as James Deitz, left our region long ago. He
position.
has built his artistic career on the West Coast but we feel it is time he is reintroduced into our community. Even though several auctions in the region have followed, the Museum’s Autumn Art Auction remains the benchmark. On behalf of the whole Museum community, I extend our deepest appreciation to everyone, especially to Madelyn Camrud and Marsy Schroeder, both former staff members, who have helped continue this event and make it run smoothly. And please remember, this is not a traditional benefit auction. We do not ask the artists to donate their work but share the proceeds with them and, most importantly, they receive their minimum price before the Museum benefits at all.
— Laurel Reuter
Rules of Auction q
Each registered guest will receive a bidding card as part of
Nancy Adams, Suellen Bateman
the price of a ticket. Upon receiving the bidding card, each
Ann Brown, Madelyn Camrud
guest will be asked to sign a statement vowing to abide by
George Cox, Sandy Crary
the Rules of the Auction listed in this catalog. q
Absentee bidders will either leave their bid on an Absentee Bid Form with Museum personnel or bid by phone the night of the auction. Absentee bidders, by filling out the form, agree to abide by the Rules of the Auction.
q
Vicki Ericson, Phyllis Espegard SuAnne Frasier, Lee Geer Rita Hadland, Julie Hall Sonya McDonald, Susan Nord Gerald O'Connor, Maxine Rasmussen Alex Reichert, Marsy Schroeder
Each bidder will use his or her own bidding number during the auction.
q
Autumn Art Auction Committee
All sales are final.
Devera Warcup, Chair Devera Warcup is a longtime resident of Grand Forks who is
q In the event of a dispute between bidders, the auctioneer
involved in the arts, both as a musician and a supporter of the
shall either determine the successful bidder or re-auction
North Dakota Museum of Art. Her volunteerism with the
the item in dispute. q
Museum began in early 1990s when she chaired the committee which established the Museum Concert Series, a series which
After the sale, or at the conclusion of the evening, all
continues as the premier venue for bringing world class
purchasers must pay for the items at the cashier’s desk and
musicians to our city. She also serves on the committee of the
claim them with their receipts as directed. Absentee bidders
Museum’s Sundog Jazz Fest.
will be charged on the evening of the auction or an invoice will be sent on the next business day after the event. q Works of art in the auction have minimum bids placed on them by the artist. This confidential minimum or "reserve" is
Enjoying and collecting the visual arts is an integral part of Devera’s life. She is proud to be involved with this event and particularly happy with the exceptional visual collection Madelyn Camrud staff has assembled.
a price agreed upon between the artist and the North
In Devera’s words: The Autumn Art Auction offers patrons the
Dakota Museum of Art below which a work of art will not
opportunity to enhance their lives by bringing into their homes
be sold.
their heart’s desire from the art world. My warning? Collecting art could become addictive! I extend my thanks to a stellar committee and staff for the time and talent each has given to ensure the success of this evening.
Institute and the Federal Prison Camp in Duluth, and has had a number of exhibitions in Minnesota and Wisconsin galleries. His work is currently in Lizzard's II Gallery in Duluth, and Portwing Pottery, Portwing, Wisconsin. Beaulieu received awards from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, the 4th Annual Maddie Simons Advocate Award in 2002, and the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations Medallion Award in 2000. Beaulieu’s work is in the permanent collection of the Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota Duluth; the Center for Diagnostic Imaging, St. Louis Park, Minnesota; and in numerous private collections.
Lot #1
DORIAN BEAULIEU Duluth, Minnesota Ceramic Vessel Stoneware 20 x 16 inches, 1991 Range $300-350 Dorian Beaulieu, while in high school, discovered the potter's wheel and assembled a pottery studio in his parents' home on College Street in Duluth, Minnesota. He has been working with and helping others experience the wonders of clay ever since. His continuing education pottery classes at Lake Superior College have grown in popularity. According to Beaulieu, pottery students feel that working with clay has the power to heal, to make one feel better. Beaulieu often shrugs off compliments about his teaching style. I feel a lot of joy interacting with people, he says when explaining his teaching methods. People are beautiful things. Beaulieu, in response to an invitation by the Chinese Government, demonstrated his ceramic processes at the World Ceramics Conference held in Foshan, China, October 7-23, 2002. He received his bachelors degree from the University of Minnesota Duluth, and his masters degree from the University of Wisconsin Superior. Beaulieu taught ceramics at the Duluth Art
Lot #3
JOY PARKER Clearbrook, Minnesota Tulip Birch Bark Basket Birch bark, black spruce root 13 x 20 inches, 2001 Range $200-300
Lot #2
DAVID NORSTAD Detroit Lakes, Minnesota Been There, Done That acrylic on canvas 40 x 30 inches, 2000 Range $900-1000 David Norstad has been making art full-time since 1981. He lives and works in his Ragged Edge Art Studio located on Island Lake in the Smoky Hills of Becker County near Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. Been There, Done That is from Norstad’s Windows-Doorways series. He says, Looking in or looking out, windows give us a view of the world—familiar or strange, reality or fantasy. Norstad works in a variety of media—acrylic, watercolor, pastel, collage, mixed media and sculpture. He is most often associated with his whimsical fabric collages, one of which was included in the book Whole Cloth by Mildred Constantine and Laurel Reuter (Monacelli Press, 1997). He has participated in numerous regional, national, and international juried shows. He has received over 160 awards and honors, including Best of Show and Governors’ Selection awards in North Dakota and Minnesota. Norstad was one of seventeen artists included in the National Acrylic Painters Society International Art Exhibition Far East tour which traveled to Thailand, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Norstad received a bachelors degree in humanities and social sciences with an emphasis in art from North Dakota State University. His work is currently in thirteen galleries from New York to California, and in permanent collections of public and private collectors in the United States and abroad.
JOY PARKER, whose lineage is more than half-Scandinavian, met an elderly Finnish gentleman about twenty years ago who introduced her to Finnish double-woven baskets made of birch bark. She has practiced this very old craft ever since. The Tulip Birch Bark Basket is a double weave. Birch bark has fine usable qualities because it sheds water and is slow to rot. The early Finnish people extracted bark from birch trees—the first trees to cover Scandinavia after the ice age. They used the bark for flooring, shingles, and for wrapping timbers. As an art media the bark’s early use was not limited to baskets. It was also used for other items necessary in daily life such as vases, waterproof jugs, bowls, knife holders, and shoes for wearing in the Finnish sauna. Parker, as a result of her extensive research of birch bark art, has learned to make many of these early items. She has also created patterns for new birch bark objects which she has published and copyrighted. To make her baskets, Parker peels the bark from the birch tree in spring when the sap is running and the bark is easily loosened. She cuts a straight line on the tree bark from top to bottom, then peels, and simultaneously rolls the bark around her hand. She shapes the bark into a basket during the weaving or braiding process which follows the stripping. Parker has taught birch bark basketry in workshops in Minnesota and Arizona. In 1992, her works were featured in Basket Bits magazine, and the Minnesota State Arts Board chose her for listing in the Minnesota Folk Artists Directory. In June 1990, two of Parker’s baskets were presented to Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev during their Minnesota visit.
relationship to each other are secondary. His subjects are intended to be whimsical, bright, non-threatening and graphic. Another work in this series of drawings was chosen for the cover of the Spring 2000 issue of the North Dakota Quarterly. In November and December, 2001, Nupdal’s work was part of a group show at the Empire Arts Center in Grand Forks, and in 2002 he exhibited his drawings at ArtsPlace in Grand Forks. His work is in a number of private collections in the region and in Denver, Colorado, and Seattle, Washington.
Carol Struve grew up on a farm near Prescott, Wisconsin. She studied nursing in Minneapolis and worked as a registered nurse for twenty-five years. She earned her BFA at Massachusetts College of Art during her nursing practice and, later, an MFA at the University of Massachusetts Amherst while working as a triage nurse in student health services and teaching art. In 1997, she left her nursing career to fully devote her time to art, and to teach painting and drawing at Bemidji State University, Bemidji, Lot #4
GARY NUPDAL Grand Forks, North Dakota Monty P. Meets Rube G. Colored pencil 26 1/2 x 21 3/4 inches, 2001 Range $500-600 Gary Nupdal, a native of St. Thomas, North Dakota, graduated with a BFA degree in painting at the University of North Dakota in 1978, and an MFA in printmaking in 1981. He has been teaching at the University of North Dakota ever since and is, at present, logistical supervisor and lecturer in UND’s Art Department where he teaches hand and power tool safety, and matting and framing. Monty P Meets Rube G. is part of a group of twenty-four color pencil drawings Nupdal created for a solo show in 2001 at the Col. Eugene Myers Gallery in the UND Hughes Fine Arts Center. Color, pattern, and shape are the important elements in Nupdal’s work, along with repetition. Specific objects and their
Minnesota, where she is still employed. As a nurse, Struve often helped people face the end of life. Thus, the act of drawing and painting has become a personal metaphor for continuation of life and rebirth, as well as a spiritual journey about her relationship to nature in its rawest form. Struve loves walking in natural environments—smelling and looking and listening to the land. It was on such walks in Massachusetts that Struve created the pond series of charcoal drawings. In Pond Series III she interprets her impression of her experience in that environment. Personal and symbolic forms give an illusion of the atmosphere; place and the mood represent her experience. Struve has exhibited her work in solo shows in Minnesota, Massachusetts, and North Dakota. She had her first solo exhibition in New York in October, 2002. To prepare for this, she received the Bemidji State University Professional Improvement Grant. Struve has received numerous other fellowships, honors and awards, including a McKnight Foundation Individual Artist Grant in 1999.
Lot #5
CAROL STRUVE Bemidji, Minnesota Pond Series III Charcoal on paper 38 x 25 inches, 1995 Range $800-1000
media, continually advancing his style and technique. Grabowski made store window displays for department stores in the early 1930s in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1941 he was drafted and served until World War II ended in 1945. After the war, Grabowski worked with an architect in Racine, Wisconsin, who apprenticed at Taliesin on a Frank Lloyd Wright fellowship. Grabowski began to build models of Wright's building projects. His admiration for Frank Lloyd Wright has endured, and evidence of the influence is apparent not only in Grabowski's Lot #6, A, B, C
ART GRABOWSKI Grand Forks, North Dakota #A (bottom left) Diamond-wood Box Philippine and South American mahogany, diamond-wood 2 1/2 x 9 7/8 x 4 inches, 2002 Range $200-225 #B (bottom right)
woodworking but in the architecture and decor of his home on Chestnut Street in Grand Forks. Another major influence on Grabowski's work is Po Shun Leong, a former architect and box maker from California. For the past several years, Grabowski has contributed his work to the North Dakota Museum of Art's Gala Benefit Dinner Auction, and sold his work in the Museum Shop. Currently, his work can also be seen at Heritage Arts Gallery and Gifts in Michigan, North Dakota. Grabowski’s work has just entered into the
Small Box Zebra, paduk, walnut bark 2 x 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches, 2002 Range $80-85 #C (top) Red Long Box Brazilian cherrywood, wild chokecherry, bark, paduk 2 1/4 x 10 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches, 2002 Range $250-275
Charles Beck is a painter, printmaker, designer and art teacher. In all his work, Beck is affected by where he lives. The landscapes around Fergus Falls, Minnesota, always his home, continually reappear in his woodcuts and paintings. Beck says, You have to make art from what you're interested in. I'd rather make a woodcut of a plowed field with some conviction than a
Art Grabowski is a wood artisan who was born and
crucifixion with none. Color and textures are what he takes from
educated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He grew up in a
the landscape, but the horizon is his biggest influence. He
neighborhood where Frank Lloyd Wright's houses and apartment
continues, . . . the separation between the sky and what I call
buildings were only three blocks from his home. Grabowski
vertical space and horizontal space . . . seems to be a part of
walked by Wright's architecture daily and became an avid
every landscape. I seem to feel the need to show the sky in the
admirer, although Grabowski credits his lifetime association with
background.
his artist brother as the reason he became a wood artist. Wood is
because of how they constantly change—weekly, even daily.
He believes landscapes are extremely exciting
an intriguing media for Grabowski. Even wood scraps are hard for him to discard, and these bits and pieces often end up in a
Beck enrolled at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota, in
box as a handle or trim piece. Grabowski says: Nature is the true
1941. His professor, Cy Running, influenced Beck in those early
artist in my work; I only give the wood another life.
years when Beck was making watercolors, but ultimately, Beck let go of influence and developed a style, undeniably his own,
Each day, 89 year-old Grabowski rises early to work in his garage
which has served him well for a half-century. Beck's work is
—now converted into a woodworking shop. He explores his
represented by the Rourke Art Museum, Moorhead, Minnesota, and is also in its permanent collection.
Lot #8
ZHIMIN GUAN Moorhead, Minnesota Mountain and Water Oil on canvas 40 x 50 inches, 1999 Range $700-1400
Zhimin Guan, born in China, began to paint at age nine under the influence of his father, a Chinese ink painter and calligrapher. While studying at the Fuyang Teacher’s College in China, Guan concentrated on oil painting and drawing in the western classical style. In 1995 he came to the United States to examine the complexities of western contemporary art. The resulting blend of styles in Guan’s work tends to unify East with West—Chinese calligraphy and abstract expressionism merge under the influence of Chinese landscape painting. In 1998, after receiving an MFA at Fort Hays State University, Kansas, Guan began teaching painting, drawing, figure drawing and design at Minnesota State University Moorhead's Art Department where he still works as an Assistant Professor of Art. In his recent series of abstract paintings called Mountain and Water, Guan, with a minimum of brush strokes, gives the viewer the essence of mountains and water. The solid and the void, or energy and charm are the yin and yang in this series. The constant motion between opposite forces reveals the order of Lot #7
nature, Guan says. His concern is not to recreate nature, but to
CHARLES BECK
re-establish a vital breath and universal harmony in the forms,
Fergus Falls, Minnesota
colors, marks, textures and spaces.
Spring Bluebills Woodcut
Guan’s work has been exhibited in the China National Art
21 x 31 inches, 1988
Gallery, Beijing; the China Academy of Fine Arts Museum; and
Range $450-650
the Singapore Asian Artists Gallery. In the United States he has shown at the Salmagundi Club, New York City; CCC/USA, Philadelphia; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis; the Dunton Gallery, Chicago; the Fraser Gallery in Washington D.C.; and the Plains Art Museum, Fargo, among others.
group and juried shows throughout the United States, and in Australia and New Zealand. This past spring, she had a solo exhibition at St. Thomas University on its Minneapolis, Minnesota, campus. Other recent solo exhibitions in North Dakota include the Plains Art Museum, Fargo; the GK Gallery, Cooperstown; Northwest Art Center, Minot State University, Minot; and Valley City State University, Valley City. She has also shown in South Dakota, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. Her work was also in two separate traveling exhibitions sponsored by the North Dakota and Montana Gallery Associations. These shows went to seven North Dakota and Montana cities. Morrissey grew up in Lidgerwood, North Dakota. After completing her undergraduate work at the University of North Dakota, she moved out of state with her family for twenty-four years. During that time, she completed an MA degree in painting at the University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, and an MFA in printmaking at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. Morrissey’s work is in corporate, university, and foundation Lot #9
SUSAN MORRISSEY Valley City, North Dakota Pray for Rain Assemblage 15 x 14 x 4 inches, 2001 Range $650-950
Susan Morrissey says, Pray for Rain could as well be Pray for No Rain. It reflects the constant awareness of North Dakotans and
other
rural
state
dwellers
of
weather
nuances.
Metaphorically, Pray for Rain could refer to any one of many
Lot #10
human endeavors — the success or failure determined by forces beyond human control. To those forces I appeal, as have cultures going back to the beginning of time.
MAJO KELESHIAN Ellsworth, Maine Mnemonic 7 & Mnemonic 8
Pray for Rain is one of five small assemblages Morrissey
Mixed media, rag paper
composed in a shrine format. The intimacy and small scale of
6 x 5 inches each, 1997
these pieces challenged her to limit her natural tendency toward
Range $1200-1250 for the pair
complexity and vibrant color. For many years, Morrissey had made paintings, prints and drawings in a figurative style that was disposed towards social comment. Since her return to North
MaJo Keleshian was born in New York City. And when as
Dakota in 1996, her work has included sculptural pieces like
a kid I returned (to New York) from my grandparents’ small
Pray for Rain which seem to come from a different realm.
cottage in New England at summer’s end, I wept and could not be consoled. Twenty-five years ago, Keleshian moved to the
Since 1979, Morrissey has exhibited in a large number of solo,
woods north of Ellsworth, Maine, where she still lives and works,
Lot #11
WAYNE GUDMUNDSON Moorhead, Minnesota From Grimsey Looking South to Iceland Photograph 32 1/2 x 42 inches, 1983 Range $800-1500 Wayne Gudmundson was born of Icelandic heritage in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1949. He currently teaches photography at Minnesota State University Moorhead. In 1993 and 1995, Wayne Gudmundson and Gudmundur Ingolfsson undertook a photography project called Homeplaces. Gudmundson in drawing images from (not of) nature: landscape, season, weather,
Iceland, and Ingolfsson in North America, chose to photograph
and light—a sort of visual haiku which she refers to as brief,
not simply geography, but places in relationship to the idea of
intense moments, a shock of color.
home. From Grimsey Looking South to Iceland is from that black and white series. A photographer of the flat plains on the
The Mnemonic series of twenty paintings came about when
American middle west, Gudmundson has learned how to make
Keleshian was awarded the Carina House Residency for Maine
an interesting photograph of a landscape that is almost entirely
Artists on Monhegan Island, Maine. In the Mnemonic series she
background. He concentrates on the middle ground, composing
used caran d’ache crayons as if she were sculpting in color, often
photographs that insist on the solidity of things, and on the object
beginning on wet paper so the crayon acts like watercolor; then,
in its concrete place. Landscapes that might be barren are
with dry crayon, building up a thick pigment to wipe off or etch
claimed as home by these objects.
into, creating compelling but subtle color transitions. The result of the process gives a sense of history and texture in the tones of
Homeplaces, organized by pARTs Photographic Arts of
each piece—a feeling of old painted walls, or wood grain. One
Minneapolis, Minnesota, resulted in a catalog and exhibitions in
looks at the gradations of color as if to examine history and the
Reykjavik, Iceland; Minneapolis and Moorhead, Minnesota; and
marks left by change.
Winnipeg, Manitoba. Wayne Gudmundson’s photographs have appeared in five different books, among them Minnesota Gothic,
Keleshian received her bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence
1992, a collaboration with poet Mark Vinz, and in 2002, The
College, Bronxville, New York, and later completed her Visual Art
Promise of Water published by The Institute for Regional Studies,
studies at the University of Maine, Orono, Maine. For the past
North Dakota State University. Gudmundson’s photographs are
decade she has exhibited in a number of solo and group
in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the
exhibitions in Maine. Keleshian had her first solo show in New
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Paine Webber
York City in October 2002. Her work is in the collections of the
Collection in New York; The Canadian Centre for Architecture in
Museum of Art, University of Maine, Orono, and CancerCare of
Montreal; and Ralph’s Corner Bar in Moorhead, Minnesota.
Maine art gallery at Eastern Maine Medical Center, Bangor.
Lot #12
BARTON Lidice BENES New York, New York Ossuary Silkscreen 29 3/4 x 33 1/2 inches, 2002 Range $1500-2000
Barton Lidice Benes was born in Westwood, New
introduction. Benes appears on The Today Show, October 24,
Jersey, and educated in the early 1960s at the Pratt Institute,
2002, to talk about his book with Katie Couric and Matt Lauer.
Brooklyn, New York. Benes became internationally known in the
The London Times bought first rights to reprint passages from the
1980s as the "money artist." During this period he collaged
book.
recycled currency on sculptural and flat forms. Today, Benes assembles modern-day curiosity cabinets, or reliquaries, out of
Benes has an extensive exhibition history. His latest show in New
everyday items that have been touched by fame, only some of
York opened at the Lennon Weinberg Gallery on October 17,
which are covered with money. The North Dakota Museum of
2002. In the past decade, Benes has shown his work in Sweden,
Art's Donor Wall, created by Benes, exemplifies this style. In
Canada, New Mexico, the Czech Republic, South Africa,
1998, Benes was commissioned by the North Dakota Museum of
Australia, Finland, Germany, Portugal, Sweden and throughout
Art to create a Flood Museum in collaboration with over a
the United States, including the North Dakota Museum of Art.
hundred community people who contributed personal relics
Benes' work has been collected by the National Museum of Art
from the flood.
in Washington, D.C.; the Chicago Art Institute in Chicago; Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris; and the Federal Reserve Board in
Ossuary is a fifty-run silkscreen print made at the Hand Print
Washington, D.C., plus dozens more.
Workshop in Alexandria, Virginia, and it includes some of Benes’ favorite relics. The center image is the Ossuary in Kutna Hora,
Benes’ apartment in New York’s Westbeth is a work of art in itself
Czech Republic, the original home of Benes family.
—and it is stuffed with art. It is to be installed in its entirety in the North Dakota Museum of Art once it is of no further use to the
In September, 2002, Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York, released Benes’ Curiosa: Celebrity Relics, Historical Fossils, and Other Metamorphic Rubbish. Benes wrote the text, and John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, wrote the
artist.
Puetz first beaded soft figures which she calls dolls. The dolls show her life experiences and reflect the way she interprets the Lot #13
CHRISTY PUETZ Phoenix, Arizona Drone Beaded painting 8 1/2 x 6 5/8 inches, 2001 Range $400-450
world. More recently, she has moved to making flat bead art, sometimes as pictures but also as quilts. Like the doll, the beaded quilt is one of the oldest human forms. A historical theme may run through each quilt—the pattern, for example. But the materials I use such as beads, laminated images, and fabric create a fresh new form. Clearly, Puetz’s passion is to find beauty in irregularity and the lack of perfection. I cover surfaces with color, texture, and honesty, says Puetz. Her solo and group exhibition list is long, the most recent being the Annual Midwestern Exhibition this past summer at the Rourke Art Museum, Moorhead, Minnesota, where a piece of hers received a prize
Christy Puetz (Pitz) received her BFA with a fiber arts focus at the University of North Dakota. She introduced her work
and remains in its permanent collection. Various articles about Puetz’s work have appeared in major bead art magazines.
at the North Dakota Museum of Art when she sold beaded pins in the Museum Shop. Since then, Puetz has sold, exhibited, and received awards for her bead art throughout the United States. Puetz grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. She currently works as an Educational Assistant at the Bead Museum in Glendale, Arizona.
Dan Jones lives with his family in Fargo, North Dakota, where he is a full-time landscape painter. Jones, primarily working in oil, also makes charcoal drawings and prints. A small winter landscape print by Jones served as the North Dakota Museum of Art's membership print in 1999-2000. Jones' signature hay bales appear in several large paintings commissioned by the Green Mill restaurants in Fargo and Grand Forks. Jones often works large scale as seen in Field's Edge. Jones says, Working on this scale can be very liberating, reducing things down to the most basic elements—simple, but dramatic. Jones creates much of his work on site in the spacious landscapes of North Dakota and Minnesota. He courts the influence of the field. Jones' works are included in many museums, corporate, and private collections, including the National Endowment for
Lot #14
the Arts in Washington, D.C.; the Plains Art Museum, Fargo; the Rourke Art Museum, Moorhead, Minnesota; and the North
DAN JONES
Dakota Museum of Art. In 1997, Jones was part of the Five
Fargo, North Dakota
Painters From North Dakota show at the Henrik Ibsen House
Field's Edge
Museum, Skien, Norway.
Oil on canvas 72 x 54 inches, 2002 Range $4500-4800
Design. He recently designed and constructed the interior of the new Beltrami County Historical Society building in downtown Bemidji. He has widespread experience in graphic design, illustration and exhibit design. His work can be viewed at the Fly By Night Artspace and by appointment at his studio in rural Bemidji. Sundahl received a bachelors degree in graphic design and a BFA at Bemidji State University, Bemidji, Minnesota. His MFA is from the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. His work has been exhibited at the Plains Art Museum, Fargo; the Col. Eugene Myers Gallery in the Hughes Fine Center Arts Gallery, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks; and in Minneapolis, Duluth and Bemidji galleries.
Mike Marth, born in St. Paul, Minnesota, moved to Fargo in 1996. For almost twelve years, Marth has been using the still life subject as a vehicle for exploring his thoughts and reactions about day-to-day experiences. His objects symbolize people, occupations, life styles and attitudes. While the images are often triggered by a specific event, they evolve as Marth reflects on the significance of the event. He prefers to keep the "pensive particulars" submerged, allowing the viewers greater freedom to find their own meanings based on their own experiences. I like Lot #15
to push the limits of what a still life can be, says Marth. Sometimes though, I make work just to satisfy my own love of
STEVE SUNDAHL
gooey paint and wonderfully oxidized surfaces.
Bemidji, Minnesota Zipper Chair
Marth studied at Northwest Missouri State University, Maryville,
Steel and wood
Missouri, and Southern Illinois State University, Carbondale,
60 x 18 x 18 inches, 2001
Illinois. He currently works as the Director of Aesthetic
Range $2000-2500
Development for the Hotel Donaldson, Fargo, North Dakota, serving as aesthetic consultant to develop the boutique hotel's art collection and exhibition spaces.
Steve Sundahl is a versatile artist known for his fine craftsmanship in ceramics, sculpture, drawing and design. His
Marth has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions
work offers visual pleasure, laced with social commentary which
throughout the region. A Decade of Still Life, 2002, featured six
is often humorous in its exposure of human frailty in the face of
simultaneous solo shows by Marth and included the Plains Art
modern technology. His current project is at once an intriguing
Museum, Fargo, and the Reineke Visual Arts Gallery, North
art work, a feat of design, and a sturdy place to sit. Sundahl plans
Dakota State University, Fargo. In February, 2002. Marth had a
someday to exhibit all 100 chairs. He wants his art to physically
solo exhibition at the Rourke Art Museum, Moorhead,
engage the viewer. He believes art should be active, not static.
Minnesota. His work is included in the collections of the Plains Art Museum; the Rourke Art Museum; The Federal Reserve Bank,
Sundahl is a professor of Visual Arts at Bemidji State University,
Minneapolis; the North Dakota Museum of Art; and others, as
Bemidji, Minnesota, and runs his own design firm, Sundahl
well as in numerous private collections.
Lot #17
MAREN KLOPPMANN Minneapolis, Minnesota Vessel Porcelain 7 1/2 x 20 inches, 2002 Range $750-900 Maren Kloppmann is inspired by the concepts of containment and space which she expresses in her vessels. The essence of a vessel, Kloppmann says, may lie at the threshold where a horizontal curve meets the vertical plane, where thinness and thickness of edges define negative and positive space. Through crevices, openings and enclosures, through surrounding walls, vaults and curvatures, a container begins to allude to architectural space . . . perceiving the ceramic vessel beyond a contemplation of function. I intend to extend the notion of utilitarian containment to that of sculptural presence. Kloppmann, born in Veerssen, Germany, has BFA and MFA degrees from the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri, and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. She received a Journeyman Diploma from Keramik Handwerkskammer, Germany, in 1984. A self-employed ceramic artist, she serves as adjunct faculty at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls. In 2002, Kloppmann received a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Lot #16
Ceramic Artists, and in 1998 she was awarded a Jerome Artist Project Grant for Ceramics. She has exhibited solo in Munich,
MIKE MARTH
Germany; Rochester, Minnesota, and in group exhibitions
Moorhead, Minnesota
through the United States. Her work is in the collections of the
Still Life
Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Northern Clay Center,
Mixed media on panel
Minneapolis; the Katherine E. Nash Collection at the Weisman
49 x 42 inches, 1996
Art Museum, Minneapolis; and the Historical Society of
Range $1000-1200
Minnesota, St. Paul.
Lot #18
MARY SCHJELDAHL Worthington, Massachusetts Untitled (North Dakota) Color C Print 12 x 22 inches, 1994
Lot #19 Mary Schjeldahl, having grown up in the vast, melancholy landscape of the midwest, has become a natural
GEORGIE PAPAGEORGE
lover of quiet observation. She is interested in the ever present
Pretoria, South Africa
possibility of the sublime in the amazing landscape of North
Africa Rifting-—Lines of Fire, Namibia/ Brazil
Dakota. She shot Untitled (North Dakota)
just north of
Installation of the half cross in Namibia on the 13th June, 2001
Bismarck, North Dakota, after a terrifically violent storm had
Mixed graphic and paint on Fabriano paper
passed through. I had been drawn out into these fields by the
39 x 21 inches, 2001
powerful clouds that were forming, and then felt afraid for my life
Range $2500-2750
as the storm hit and I was unprotected. As they were receding, the clouds opened up and provided this view of gold against the black storm, and I was awestruck. Schjeldahl remembers as a child visiting North Dakota with her parents. They told her the land was so flat you could see the curvature of the earth. This thought came back to her as she looked out at the lesson in perspective the power lines provided. Schjeldahl was born in Northfield, Minnesota, in 1959, and moved to the suburbs of Minneapolis when she was ten. She attended Parsons School of Design in New York City and graduated with honors in 1992. Schjeldahl currently lives in western Massachusetts with her husband, Dave, and runs her own photo studio—HotHouse Photography. She works for a variety of publications including Orion, Boston Magazine, Disney, and Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. Her personal work includes photo essays on North Dakota, New York City, the demolition derby, abandoned theaters, and landscapes shot with vintage amateur cameras. She shows and sells her work through her studio.
Georgie Papageorge, born in Simonstown, South Africa, was educated at the University of South Africa, Pretoria. For the past fifteen years, Papageorge has explored the idea of social and geological rift in Africa. Her symbols of mutating barrier concepts utilize ideas of the Judaic/Christian cross and red and white chevron banners suggesting barriers. She places her installations in varying African environments as she explores sacrifice and transcendence. Papageorge continues her earlier explorations in the current Africa Rifting—Lines of Fire project. Internalizing her search, she looks at the conflict between the physical body and the immortal soul. In this work she explores the schism of the African and South American continents, caused by a split 135 million years
Lot #20
ago of the ancient continent Gondwanaland, which initiated the
TAKESHI TAKAHARA
first appearance of the Atlantic Ocean.
Ann Arbor, Michigan Shoal
On and along the coasts of Namibia, Africa, and Torres, Brazil,
intaglio
Papageorge created two installations. On both coastlines, she
18 x 24 inches, 2000
suspended long red banners to form a cross, or "X" formation
Range $700-750
which she then split into upper and lower halves to form a "V". A second formation of red banners was laid flat along the beach
Takeshi Takahara, since 1990, has used water as a
parallel to the ocean to recreate the Rift Line that divided the
subject in his work. He is particularly interested in water
continents. The Torres, Brazil, work was installed September 11,
phenomena, such as rain, waterfall, snow, waves, and frost.
2001. On September 15, a third installation took place incorporating a procession of children walking in Torres along the Praia Grande in front of the city. Carrying the long red
Takahara chose intaglio because it is an active medium that demands the artist’s attention every step in the process; yet, at the same time it is forgiving. An intaglio plate can be scraped, revised and added to at any stage. Takahara feels that repetitions often
banners between them, they created a living arterial line that in
help clarify the idea behind the work. His latest explorations
a sense became a healed rift between the two continents. Africa
involve a combination of intaglio and woodcarving which result
Rifiting—Lines of Fire may be regarded as a "field sketch," from
in three-dimensional work. He is fascinated with this new
the Africa Rifting Series of more than twenty works. The loose,
challenge, but is still committed to making prints on paper.
painterly style captures the wind, light and space of the Namib/Naukluft Desert coastline.
Takahara received MFA and MA degrees in printmaking under Mauricio Lasansky, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. His bachelors degree in economics is from Hosei University, Tokyo.
Papageorge has work in collections in South Africa, Rome,
Since 1982 to the present, Takahara has served as professor of
Munich, Lisbon, London, Washington, Philadelphia, New York
printmaking and drawing at the University of Michigan School of
City, and North Dakota. In 1990 she created Suspension, an
Art and Design, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Takahara has had solo
altarpiece which was installed and dedicated to the American
exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally,
Indian in the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City.
including Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Brazil, Italy and
It is on long-term loan to the North Dakota Museum of Art where
Germany, among others. His work has been collected widely by
she had solo exhibitions in 1992 and 1995. Many of her pieces
institutions and corporations including the Toledo Museum of
are collaborative works, or events that come to completion on
Art, Ohio; the University of Iowa Museum, Iowa City; the
site. In 2003 she will exhibit Africa Rifting in a solo show at Art
University of Colorado, Boulder; Smith College, Northampton,
First Gallery in London, England.
Massachusetts; and the Westinghouse Regional Office, Iowa City, Iowa.
Lot #22
TIM SCHOUTEN Lot #21
Dugald, Manitoba Little Doghead Point, Spring Thaw
WALTER PIEHL
patron purchase
Oil, gold leaf, metal on plywood
Minot, North Dakota
Walter Piehl’s work was donated
48 x 8 inches, 2000
to the Auction
Range $2000-2350
Valley Cowgirl Acrylic on canvas 36 x 30 inches, 2002
by U.S. Bank as a benefit for the North Dakota Museum of Art
Range $2400-2700
Tim Schouten, born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, studied at Art’s Sake Inc. in Toronto in the early 1980s. Schouten’s paintings have been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions throughout
Walter Piehl is one of North Dakota's most highly regarded
Canada and he was represented by Tatar Alexander Gallery at
artists. He studied undergraduate art at Concordia College in
The Toronto International Art Fair in 2001. Schouten's paintings
Moorhead, Minnesota, and received a Master of Arts degree from
are held in private and corporate collections, including the
the University of North Dakota studying under Robert A. Nelson.
collection of the Province of Manitoba.
He continued his work at the University of Minnesota. Piehl is one of a few artists in the country to successfully create "cowboy
Little Doghead Point, Spring Thaw is from a series titled Roads
art" in a contemporary mode. He grew up on a ranch near
North. This series developed from Schouten’s interest in the
Marion, North Dakota, where his family raised rodeo stock, and
winter roads in northern Manitoba and his concerns about
began riding as soon as he could sit on a horse. Over the years,
economic conditions in the isolated First Nations communities
Piehl was a roper and rider in rodeo arenas. He continues to
which they serve. Access to twenty-one northern communities in
"call" at rodeos and to follow the careers of his rodeo-riding sons
Manitoba is solely by air or water, except during the six to eight
while teaching at Minot State University, Minot, North Dakota.
weeks each winter when these ice roads are open. The winter roads are newly built each year through the bush, over muskeg,
Piehl has won numerous awards for his colorful, expressionistic
lakes and rivers. During the narrow window of time when they
paintings, and has shown at such venerable institutions as the
are open, thousands of tons of heavy materials and equipment
Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City and the C. M. Russell
are freighted to the north. The roads open local vehicle travel for
Museum in Great Falls. Two works from his Sweetheart of the
residents who must rely on expensive air travel the rest of the
Rodeo Series are in the permanent collection of the North
year. Little Doghead Point, Spring Thaw depicts the melting at the
Dakota Museum of Art.
east shore of the Lake Winnipeg crossing at the end of a short winter season. Although officially closed three weeks earlier, Northern residents were still using this 16 kilometer lake crossing. Schouten works in oil and encaustic and he occasionally uses sculptural and collage elements in his paintings. For Little Doghead Point, Spring Thaw, he used gold leaf muted with glazes of oil paint to indicate the economic conditions in the North and the hope for a brighter, richer future. Pieces of the collaged rusted metal used in the work were gathered from the muddy shoreline at Little Doghead Point. Schouten
has
made
book
works
and
a
web
site
(www.mban.org/proj/distances) to advance this project. He has exhibited in solo and group shows at a number of Winnipeg and Toronto galleries, and is the recipient of several grants and awards from Manitoba and Canada, among them the Canada Council Travel Grant, and the Manitoba Arts Council Visual Arts "A" Grant in 2001.
Lot #23
SHIHOKO FUKUMOTO Kyoto, Japan Koboreru Hikari Indigo-dyed silk abaka 65 X 30 3/4 inches, 2001 Range $3200-3400 specially equipped washing facilities and purified water. Shihoko Fukumoto, born in Osaka, Japan, in 1945,
Fukumoto has an active exhibition record dating back to the
received her BFA from Kyoto City University. Fukumoto believes
Lausanne Biennials, Lausanne, Switzerland. Most recently,
there are three elements necessary to a work of art: to be fresh
Fukumoto was chosen for the group exhibition entitled Textural
and original, to be simple, and to convey a sense of depth. For
SPACE, Contemporary Japanese Textile Art, which toured a
Fukumoto, fresh is the element that applies to a sense of the new
number of Tokyo galleries and museums (2001). She was also
in ideas, material, technique, tools or equipment. Simplicity, a
included in The Invitational Exhibition of Chongju International
firm principle in Fukumoto's work, is her own pursuit of a
Craft Biennale '99, a Chongju exhibition in 1999, and in ASIAN
penetrating directness of expression–—to polish a work. Depth,
AVANT-GARDE at Christie’s in London in 1998. In 2002,
for Fukumoto, is a penetration into the deep and fundamental
Fukumoto exhibited at Muromachi Museum of Art, Kyoto, Japan.
nature of things. The process she uses to discover how to
Her work has been collected by the National Museums of
creatively use new senses and conceptions is one of trial and
Modern Art in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, and by other museums
error. Her studio workspace is filled with unexpected objects—
and galleries in Japan and the United States. She is represented
not only glass-fiber sticks, but plastic indigo vats in specially
by Bellas Artes Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
ordered sizes, large wooden tools around which cloth is wrapped for shibori dyeing, pulleys used for hanging heavy dye cloth, and
Lot #24
GREGG WILIMEK Bemidji, Minnesota We Have Got to Get Ourselves Back to the Garden Oil on canvas 32 x 36 inches, 1993 Range $800-900
Gregg Wilimek has been a producing artist and a visual arts educator in northern Minnesota for over twenty years. He earned his MFA degree in painting from the University of North Dakota and produces art in his studio located on Lake Movil, just north of Bemidji, Minnesota. The extent to which the spiritual, the psychological, and the community influence the process of human decision-making lies at the core of Wilimek’s art. Lot #25 In his Scarecrow Series, scarecrow characters are staged in dark yet whimsical settings that compel the onlooker to make
GREGORY VETTEL
moment-in-time choices. Symbolism, richness of color, and
Thompson, North Dakota
imaginative lighting define Wilimek’s paintings. We Have Got To
Hyperion II
Get Ourselves Back To The Garden images three scarecrows
Metal moving parts
poised on the edge of a road leading to both a city and a farm.
17 x 13 inches, 2001
Their presence invites the traveler to linger and to meditate on the consequences of choices.
Range $400-500
Wilimek teaches middle school students a variety of art methods
Gregory VetteL was scolded and admonished by his
and media, and emphasizes the value of art history in the artistic
grandfather for taking parts from the scrap pile to make imaginary
process. He travels extensively to museums and historical sites
machines and playthings on the farm where he was raised
throughout North America and Europe, and uses his
southwest of Grand Forks, North Dakota. A former automobile,
comprehensive slide collection to enhance his lectures. Wilimek
motorcycle, and truck technician, Vettel's love of machines,
also enjoys the challenge of working on a larger scale, and has
advanced by his ownership of Harley Davidson motorcycles, has
designed over twenty-five stage sets for local theater groups. A
evolved into sculptures of discarded Harley parts. Vettel also
solo exhibit of his current work is scheduled to open in
takes his parts to the computer where he creates two-dimensional
November at the Bemidji Arts Center, Bemidji, Minnesota.
color images that repeat, alter or enlarge Harley parts. Vettel received his bachelor of arts degree at Minot State University in North Dakota where he studied under Walter Piehl. Vettel took every art class that was offered. Vettel recently acquired the 30-acre farmstead where he grew up near Thompson, North Dakota. He works today in a converted quonset surrounded by trees, fields, and gravel pits which he is turning into a wildlife refuge and memorial park. His sculptures delight viewing audiences in that Vettel invites the viewer to touch and find the moving parts in his work. One of his sculptures is in the collection of a vice president of the Harley Davidson Corporation. Twenty other works are in private collections throughout the country. Vettel served as President of the North Dakota Art Gallery
Lot #26
Association for a number of years, and is still involved in the work of promoting North Dakota artists. Vettel serves as
DEANE COLIN FAY
Exhibition Coordinator for the North Dakota Museum of Art. He
Gackle, North Dakota
also restores or rebuilds old motorcycles, and occasionally,
Prairie Sentinel I Mixed media 72 x 14 x 9 inches, 2001 Range $600-1200
Deane Colin Fay says his relationship with this region is an
his work will contemplate our common bonds.
inspiration for his work. Prairie Sentinel I is the first work in a
Fay received a BFA in art at Minnesota State University
series of wall hung sculptures entitled Prairie Sentinel. Over the
Moorhead, and an MFA in Painting at the Rochester Institute of
years, Fay’s travels to Alaska, California, New York, and
Technology, Rochester, New York, in 1990. He has had many
Minnesota have afforded him rich experiences and broadened
solo and group exhibitions throughout Minnesota, North Dakota,
his awareness of cultural diversity. Through it all, he has become
Montana, New York, and Canada, and in ninety-nine sites around
conscious of the common threads in humankind. Yet, the allure
the world through the Transcultural Exchange Coaster Project
of the prairies and the kindred bond he has with this part of the
which he participated in during 2002. Fay, a former gallery
country have always drawn him home. Fay has developed a
owner/manager in Fargo, is currently affiliated with the
vocabulary of images and forms that stimulate a universal
Spanbauer Galleries in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and in Naples,
aesthetic for the consideration of man’s fight for survival, his need
Florida.
to belong, and his compulsion for individual expression. Colin Fay’s work may be about coping with the environment,
Fay’s work is in the Memorial Union Gallery Collection, North
connecting with ghosts from the past, or battling the inner
Dakota State University, Fargo; Dolly Fitterman Fine Arts,
demons that all humans experience. Mostly, he hopes viewers of
Minneapolis; and numerous corporate collections in North Dakota and Minnesota. Fay currently works as Exhibition and
physical likeness. Whitney’s subjects in this series are women who have impacted her life. The Mexican woman is someone Whitney met while teaching printmaking in Mexico. The caran d’ache monotype process Whitney uses is important to the content of the print—the crayon is a childlike and direct tool. Images are created quickly on plexiglas, and any expressive marks are intended. The drawing is covered with dampened paper, run through an intaglio press, and the water-soluble pigment is then transferred to the paper. The result is a touchable surface Whitney encourages viewers to touch. Whitney first displayed Abuela de Oaxaca without a frame, and pinned directly to the gallery wall. Whitney says the Mexican students who have come to work with her in Valley City are not afraid of color. In their society art plays an essential part in what they do. Art making is much more spiritual. In this society, people have more of a tendency to set art apart. Whitney’s group and solo exhibitions have been numerous in North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and
Lot #27
LINDA WHITNEY Valley City, North Dakota Abuela de Oaxaca caran d'ache, monotype 45 x 30 inches, 1999 Range $750-800
Linda Whitney grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and is currently serving as chair of Valley City State University’s art department where she is also an assistant professor. Whitney is a lover of bold colors and of a life that’s a cultural buffet. Individuals are much more a sum of experiences, wishes and accumulations than facial features and body language might express, says Whitney, who was a recipient of a 1999 North Dakota Governor’s Award for the Arts for her work with children in a series of prints dealing with the subject of child abuse. In her more recent portrait series (which Abuela de Oaxaca represents), Whitney’s concerns are individual personal realities, dreams, desires, accomplishments and disabilities rather than
Don Reichert has been making art in a variety of media for over forty years. He brings together the tradition of landscape painting with the compulsions of gestural abstraction. Reichert has always been a physical painter and his work, whether in painting, drawing or photography, embodies a sort of muscular rigor that is not without its lyrical dimensions. Reichert's career has also been characterized by a creative restlessness that has compelled him to do everything from altering his own photographs, to painting on glass, to building race cars. Born in Libau, Manitoba, Reichert studied at the University of Manitoba and at the Instituto Alende in Mexico in the late fifties. He taught at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Manitoba for more than twenty years. He has been an artist-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick and was awarded a Canada Council Grant to work in St. Ives, Cornwall, in the mid-sixties. He attended a number of the legendary Emma Lake Workshops, including those led by Jules Olitski, Frank Stella and John Cage. In 1973, he was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy. Reichert was given his first one-person show at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 1960.
Lot #29
AGANETHA DYCK Winnipeg, Manitoba Shoes, 2001 shoes, beeswax, honeycomb, plastic rose, bee work Size 7 ladie’s shoe Range $1000-1200 Aganetha Dyck works with the cooperation of an apiary and a professional beekeeper. She invites honey-bees to intervene in the objects she places in their hives —the bees build honeycomb on the surfaces of the objects. Dresses, shoes, books
Reichert has continued to exhibit nationally and internationally
and even sporting gear emerge from the bee-hives with moraine-
for the last 42 years. His work is included in the collections of the
like deposits of aromatic beeswax. Often Dyck uses a found
National Gallery of Canada; the Art Gallery of Ontario; the
object "as is" (like this pair of women's shoes), selected as part of
Montreal Museum of Fine Art, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the
a larger conceptual project. Shoes 2001 is part of a series in that
Canada Council Art Bank, the Art Gallery of Windsor; the
Dyck and the bees complete one pair of shoes a year.
University of New Brunswick; the University of Western Ontario; and numerous corporate and private collections.
Dyck’s artistic career began in 1975 while living in Saskatchewan, Canada, where she took classes at Prince Albert
In conjunction with his 1995 exhibition, the Winnipeg Art
Community College. She began with fiber art (specifically
Gallery published Don Reichert: A Life in Work, a hardcover
shrunken wool garments) which resulted in the installation piece,
book edited by Meeka Walsh, the editor of Border Crossings
Close Knit (1976-1981), first exhibited at the MacKenzie Gallery
magazine, with contributions from Walsh, Shirley Madill, Robert
in Regina, Saskatchewan. Dyck’s art moved to A Canning Project
McKaskell and Robert Enright. The book is included with the
(1983), 100 jars of buttons purchased from a landlord, canned
purchase of Persona Upsidedown.
and made beautiful; then she moved on to The Brain is Not Enough, a collection of thousands of smokers’ last cigarettes transformed into art works displayed in plexiglas showcases. In
Lot #28
the 1990s, Dyck began working with the bees in Winnipeg, where she was born and still lives.
DON REICHERT Winnipeg, Manitoba Persona Upsidedowna acrylic/glass 20 x 20 inches, 1999
[can be viewed upside down]
Dyck exhibits throughout Canada and France and has conducted residencies in England, The Netherlands, and France, where her work remains in private collections. In Canada, her work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada and the Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa; the Manitoba Arts Council Art Bank; Winnipeg Art Gallery; and others. She received awards from the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Lot #30
CARL OLTVEDT Moorhead, Minnesota August Patterns Oil on canvas 28 x 46 inches, 2000 Range $2700-2900 Carl Oltvedt, with artist friends, goes out in the field to draw and paint on location no matter the season. In the summer of 2002, he joined the artists who came to North Dakota for the Re-Imagining New York exhibition on field trips into the North Dakota-Minnesota landscape. Carl believes it is essential to be in the landscape in order to capture the light and mood of changing colors in sky and atmosphere. Anyone who has ever said there is no beauty in the flat landscape of the Red River Valley would have to change their opinion upon seeing Oltvedt's paintings. The viewer shares in the feeling of "being there." August Patterns was completed on location just outside Fergus Falls, Minnesota, during the summer of 2000. Oltvedt began teaching at Minnesota State University Moorhead in August of 1983 where he is currently a full-time professor
Lot #31
primarily teaching drawing. He has worked as a guest artist in regional schools, and his work is represented by Groveland
STERLING RATHSACK JR.
Gallery in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He also has work in the
Superior, Wisconsin
permanent collections of the Plains Art Museum, Fargo; the
Artemis Herm
Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu; the Minneapolis Institute
Mixed media: wood, broken ceramic
of Arts, Minneapolis; the Minnesota State Historical Society; and
over terra cotta, paint
the North Dakota Museum of Art.
76 x 16 inches square at the base, 1993
Lot #32
TOM LOVATT Winnipeg, Manitoba Still Life with Bird and Flower Oil on board 25 x 25 inches, 2001 Range $1100-1250
Sterling Rathsack Jr. has maintained a studio in Superior, Wisconsin, for nearly twenty years. He works in a variety of media, his most common subjects being feminine figures, birds, fish, and animals. Like many artists, Rathsack is a collector. The objects in his collections, whether broken china for mosaic work, figurines, or bric-a-brac, are often recycled into his works of art. Rathsack likes to work with themes and subjects that examine archaic forms and content he connects to contemporary culture. His interest in Sigmund Freud led Rathsack to the Grecian myth of Diana, Goddess of the Hunt and the Moon, which is the subject of Artemis Herm. Rathsack recently completed a series of paintings that feature hands in varying poses and movement, a body of work shown in Fairbanks, Alaska, in the fall of 2002. Among Rathsack’s prominent public art works are Man, Child and Gull in Duluth’s Canal Park and River, and Lake and Forest in Minnesota’s Gooseberry Falls State Park. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has again commissioned Rathsack to create murals and sculpture for their regional headquarters in Tower, Minnesota. In 1992, Rathsack was part of a group exhibition, In Addition, at the North Dakota Museum of Art. A sculpture from that exhibit remains in the Museum’s permanent collection. Rathsack received BFA and MFA degrees from the University of Wisconsin Superior in the early 1980s. He continues to teach and exhibit throughout Minnesota. His work is in the permanent collections of the Tweed Art Museum, University of Minnesota Duluth; Vaxjo’ Commune, Vaxjo’, Sweden; Brücke Gallery in Kamakura, Japan, and numerous private collections.
Tom Lovatt was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and earned his BFA at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. Still Life with Bird and Flower is part of a larger body of work exhibited under the title Late Echo after a poem by the American poet, John Ashberry. The paintings in the series address the idea that repetition, or the re-examining of the commonplace elements of life are a way of slowing down the elements so they can be truly seen. Still Life with Bird and Flower is one of several paintings working with the same body of images in different configurations. Lovatt was in his early thirties before he finally hit his artistic stride and began to produce work he felt was distinctively his own. My work is always concerned with memory, says Lovatt. It is both personal and historical memory. My paintings and drawings are concerned with the past and the reconstructing and reinventing of that past. It is about time and how we take hold of time—the layering of that experience. From historical and contemporary resources, Lovatt finds images and items that fit into his work. He has had a large number of solo and group exhibitions in Manitoba, Alberta, and Ontario. In 2001, he had a solo exhibition at the Site Gallery in Winnipeg. A number of Lovatt's works are in the permanent collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Other works are in numerous corporate collections in Canada including Great West Life Assurance; Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce; Canada Council Art Bank; and the Government of Manitoba.
James Deitz was born in Bismarck, North Dakota, and received a BFA from the University of North Dakota in 1984. After receiving his MFA at the University of Washington, Seattle, Deitz decided to make Seattle his home. Within five years he was accepted into the Francine Seders Gallery as a showing artist. He has remained with that gallery for twelve years. Deitz's work re-interprets still life. He pumps new life into a 400year old tradition, and uses still life, as did the original Dutch and Flemish painters, occasionally for symbolic and metaphorical purposes. His canvases seem the aftermath of extreme
Lot #33
interventions: gouging, scraping and layering the paint, are all
PAUL BOWEN Provincetown, MA Fleet 8 x 10 inches on paper, 1993 Range $900-950
Artist Donation Paul Bowen has donated this work to the Auction to benefit the Museum.
indicative of this artist's labor-intensive approach to painting. His time-consuming methods underlie a deep engagement with materials which adds an emotional measure to the work. Deitz tends to concentrate on solo exhibitions, his most recent at Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, October-November, 2002.
Paul Bowen was born in Wales, UK, in 1951. He studied art
He has had a number of solo and group exhibitions in Seattle.
at the Chester School of Art and graduated from the Newport
For the past few years, Deitz has taught Drawing and Color at
College Art in Wales. He received his MFA at the Maryland
Bellevue Community College. His work is in collections of the
Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland.
Seattle Arts Commission, and Zevenbergen Capital, Seattle. Other works are in schools through Washington State's Art in
Bowen is first and foremost a sculptor, living in Provincetown,
Public Places Program.
who has captured the flavor of the outermost Cape. His work is about place. Being near the ocean and the beach is essential to his work. Bowen says, I think environment can influence one directly or indirectly. I am most interested in work that grows out of the environment without being too self-conscious. Bowen uses found and scavenged materials picked up during his predawn walks along the Atlantic beach with his dog. Among the wharves, boats, moorings, and fishing gear he might find a silvery plank of boat driftwood, washed-up shoe leather, tarred paper, fish crates, bits of wood, squid ink, rope or what-have-you—any of which may end up in a sculpture or assemblage. Bowen distills and reduces the key ingredients of the terrain to their inevitable core, elegant, graceful solutions, time and time again. Boats, most often occurring in fleets, inhabit his works on paper. For the past three decades, Bowen has had numerous solo shows in New York, Massachusetts, Washington D.C. and throughout Canada and Europe. In 1990, he was included in a group
Lot #34
exhibition, Nature’s Materials, at the North Dakota Museum of
JAMES DEITZ
Art. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of
Seattle, Washington
Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Association of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent, Belgium; and the North Dakota Museum of Art, which acquired a major sculpture in 1991.
Crib oil on canvas 15 7/8 x 15 7/8 , 1999 Range $800-950
Lots #35 and #36
The Exhibit Image of Buyer’s Choice Landsat Image 18 x 18 inches Range $300-$350
On July 23, 1972, the first of a series of Landsat Satellites was launched by NASA to circle the globe taking pictures. The millions of images captured by Landsat constitute the only continuing record of the Earth’s surface as seen from space. These images serve users who observe and study the Earth, who manage and utilize its natural resources, and who monitor the changes brought on by natural processes and human activity. During the month of October, the North Dakota Museum of Art is exhibiting The Earth as Art; A Landsat Perspective, an exhibition of over forty images from the Landsat archives, selected and processed for their aesthetic impact. This exhibit is presented in collaboration with the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences at the University of North Dakota. In addition, the USGS EROS Data Center is donating two images to the Museum Auction. The two highest bidders will be invited to select the image of their choice from the exhibit. The chosen images will be matted and framed at the EROS Data Center and shipped directly
Donated by U.S. Geological Survey, EROS Data Center, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in cooperation with Northern Great Plains Center for People and the Environment, John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks
North Dakota Museum of Art, Post Office Box 7305, Grand Forks, North Dakota 58202-7305 USA Phone: 701.777.4195 Fax: 701.777.4425 E-mail: ndmuseum@infi.net www.ndmoa.com
North Dakota Museum of Art Board of Trustees
Corinne Alphson, Emerita David Blehm, Emeritus Julie Blehm, Emerita Ann Brown Virginia Dunnigan, Emerita John Ettling Betty Gard, Secretary Bruce Gjovig, Chair David Hasbargen James Hawley Jean Holland Dan Jones Cynthia Kaldor Sandy Kaul Barb Lander, Emerita Darrell Larson, Vice President Robert Lewis, Emeritus Lisa Lewis Spicer Mary Loyland, Treasurer Ellen McKinnon, Emerita Douglas McPhail, Emeritus Barb Melby Chester E. Nelson, Jr. Gary Petersen Sanny Ryan, Emerita Laurel Reuter Annette Rorvig Gerald Skogley Anthony Thein, Emeritus Rex Wiedereanders, Emeritus Candice Wood
North Dakota Museum of Art Foundation Board of Directors
Karen Bohn Merlin Dewing Richard Larsen Darrell Larson Fern Letnes Lynn Luckow Sarah Lutman Margery McCanna Laurel Reuter Sanny Ryan, Emerita Gerald Skogley, Chair
North Dakota Museum of Art Staff Kristin Bergstrom Natalie Bowen Heather Bush Barbara Çrow Hillary Davis Reanna Dixon Sharon Ennis Sue Fink Ellen Gagnon Amy Hovde Kathy Kendle Jennifer Kotrba Brian Lofthus Danielle Osowski Emily Owings Laurel Reuter Lisa Reisnaur Lars Samuelsson Bonnie Sobolik Liz Stempinski Sissy Stempinski Jayne Stempinski Gina Van Slyke Greg Vettel