Autumn Art Auction 2011 by North Dakota Museum of Art

Autumn Art Auction Volume 13, 2011

North Dakota Museum of Art

The North Dakota Museum of Art is grateful to our sponsors who have given generously to guarantee that the arts flourish.

The 2011 Autumn Art Auction is underwritten by

Valley News Live

Front Cover: Walter Piehl, Khoas Kat: American Minotaur, 2006. Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches. Back Cover: Guillermo Guardia, Mama Cora, 2011. Ceramic, 23 x 15 x 10 inches.

North Dakota Museum of Art

AUTUMN

Art

Auction

S at u r d a y, N o v e m b e r 1 2 , 2 0 1 1 Wine and hors d’oeuvres 6:30 pm Auction begins at 8 pm

Auction Preview October 13 until auction time in the Museum galleries Monday – Friday, 9 to 5 pm, Saturday – Sunday, 1 to 5 pm All works to be auctioned will be on display

Autumn Art Auction is Underwritten by

Auction Walk-about Laurel Reuter, Auction Curator, will lead an informal

Valley News Live Page 59

patrons All Seasons Garden Center, 48 Clear Channel Radio, 71

discussion about works in the Auction Thursday, November 3, 7 pm, in the galleries

Sponsors Bremer Bank, 64 Dakota Harvest Bakers, 60

Grand Forks Herald, 65 Guesthouse International, 47 Hugo’s, 72 Leighton Broadcasting, 67 Minnesota Public Radio, 55 Office of Academic Affairs, UND, 68 River City Jewelers, 49 Salon Seva, 50 WDAZ TV, 73 William F. Wosick, MD, 45 Independent Radiology Services, Ltd. SCRIPTA, LLC HermesVelox, LLC In2shapefitnessfargo, LLC

Supporters Amazing Grains Natural Foods Market, 76 Avant Hair & Skin Care Studio, 78 Badman Design, 74 Blue Moose Bar & Grill, 58 Chad Caya Professional Painting & Historical Restoration, 52 Chester Fritz Auditorium, 58 Frandsen Bank & Trust, 63 Grand Forks Country Club, 56 Greater Grand Forks Community Theatre, 48 HB Sound & Light, 56 Ellen McKinnon, 69 Midcontinent Communications, 54 Museum Café, 70 Auction Supporters continued next page

Buy local. Read the sponsor pages to learn about those who invest in the Museum. Almost all are locally owned and operated. — David Blehm, Chairman Museum Board of Trustees

Supporters North Dakota Quarterly, 66 Rhombus Guys, 54 Sanders 1907, 46 Special Olympics North Dakota, 70 Summit Brewing Company, 57 Curtis Tanabe, DDS, 76 Duc Tran, DDS, 51 Wall’s Medicine Center & Health Mart Pharmacy, 75 Waterfront Gallery, Northern Plumbing Supply, 75

Advertisers Artwise, 52 Brady Martz & Associates, PC, 53 Browning Arts, 53 EAPC, 69

Contributors Acme Tools/Rents, 79 Alerus Financial, 77 Altru Health System, 79 Ameriprise Financial, Debbie R. Albert, 69 Archives Coffee House, 78 Camrud, Maddock, Olson, & Larson, Ltd., 78 Capital Resource Management, 51 Demers Dental, 47 Chelsea R. Erickson, DDS Paul Stadem, DDS Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra, 77 Happy Harry’s Bottle Shops, 74 Mayport Insurance & Realty, 46 Norby’s Work Perks, 53 Gregory J. Norman Funeral Chapel, 70 Opp Construction, 77 Praxis Strategy Group, 66 Rhapsody Spa & Salon, 53 Simonson Station Stores, 52 Sterling Carpet One, 74 Swanson & Warcup, Ltd., 47 Kelly Thompson, Greenberg Realty, 79 Trojan Promotions, 46 Valley Oral & Facial Surgery, 63 Xcel Energy, 57 You Are Here Gallery, 51, 77, 79 2

Zimney Foster, PC, 63

Edward Jones, Mark A. Larsen, AAMS, 64 Forks Chem-Dry, 52 Gate City Bank, 51 GoodInsurance, 57 Skip Greenberg, Greenberg Realty, 69 Meland Architecture, 53 Monarch Travel & Tours, 64 Reichert Armstrong Law Office, 66 Rite Spot Liquor Store, 60 Robert Vogel Law Office, PC, 60 Shaft, Reis & Shaft, Ltd., 57 David C. Thompson, PC, 53 Valley Car Wash, 66 Vilandre, 79

Ross Rolshoven, Auctioneer

Auction Chairs

Ross Rolshoven is a many-sided man. Foremost, he is

COURTNEY “DOC” DOCKEN (above left) is an Advertising

an artist who works in assemblage, hand-colored photography,

Executive with Midcontinent Business Solutions. His passion for

and painting. Among his exhibitions was a solo show of

art started when he began to meet local artists. “I was totally

assemblages at the North Dakota Museum of Art in 2002. The

amazed how my first purchase energized my surroundings and

work was based in the iconography of the West, in historical

added another dimension to my life.” This inspired Doc to

myths and representations of cowboys and Indians. These themes

become involved with the North Dakota Museum of Art and the

overlap with family and relationships and contemporary life. Rolshoven is a collector of early Western settlement and American Indian art and artifacts. He is completing his fifth year on Medora’s North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame Board of Directors. He has been a volunteer for numerous civic events and

Empire Arts Center to help them receive various grant opportunities. Doc enjoys sharing his experience and interest in art with others and how it has influenced personal design in his living space.

MOJDEH MARDANI (following page) teaches Electrical

charities over the past thirty years, including the North Dakota

Engineering at the Univesity of North Dakota School of

Museum of Art.

Engineering and Mines. She is also the faculty advisor for the

In addition to making and collecting art, Rolshoven collects and restores vintage boats. He is North Dakota’s only professional boat racer, having finished as high as fourth place in the National APBA tournament in Kankakee, Illinois—and totaled a boat or two along the way. In everyday life, however, he is a legal investigator who handles high profile cases involving corporate, civil, and criminal matters. He owns and operates Great Plains Claims, Inc., along with his brother Reid, in Grand Forks, North Dakota. His work routinely takes him across the Upper Midwest—a boon to his collecting and his need to acquire endless numbers of objects for making assemblages.

Society of Women Engineers at UND. Mardani is originally from Iran. Her family is spread over three different continents. She has traveled near and far but still has a long list of places to visit and experience. Mojdeh treasures her two kids and wonderful family. She enjoys working out at the local YMCA where she teaches belly dancing. Mardani has performed annually at the UND Feast of Nations.

KELLY THOMPSON (above right) is a realtor with Greenberg Realty in Grand Forks as well as a co-owner of Ink, Inc. Screenprinting and Urban Stampede Coffeehouse. He’s the father of three active teenage children, Navy, Fiona and Beck. Kelly is also an artist and one of his recent paintings is featured in this auction.

Rolshoven is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of North Dakota with a degree in Business Administration. He has three children; his oldest daughter, Ashley, is a professional barrel racer living in Texas. Daughter Jensen and son Carsen attend school in Grand Forks.

Auction Chairs Auction Committee

Rules of Auction

•

the price of a ticket. Upon receiving the bidding card, each

Jan Heitmann

guest will be asked to sign a statement vowing to abide by

Adam Kemp

the Rules of the Auction listed in this catalog.

Tara Johnson Bryan Hoime

Each registered guest will receive a bidding card as part of

•

Absentee bidders will either leave their bids on an Absentee Bid Form with Museum personnel in person or by phone, or

Sally Opp

bid by phone the night of the auction. Absentee bidders, by filling out the form, agree to abide by the Rules of the Auction. •

Each bidder will use his or her own bidding number during the Auction.

•

All sales are final.

•

In September 2002, the Office of the North Dakota State Tax Commissioner determined that the gross receipts from the sales made at the Auction are subject to sales tax at 6.75 %. This does not apply to out-of-state buyers who have works shipped to them.

•

In the event of a dispute between bidders, the auctioneer shall either determine the successful bidder or re-auction the item in dispute.

•

Purchasers may pay for items at any point following the sale of a work but must pay for all art work before the conclusion of the evening—unless other arrangements are in place. Absentee bidders will be charged on the evening of the Auction or an invoice will be sent the next business day.

•

Works of art in the Auction have minimum bids placed on them by the artist. This confidential “reserve” is a price agreed upon between the artist and the North Dakota Museum of Art below which a work of art will not be sold.

If we don’t support them, who will?

From the Museum Director

The Autumn Art Auction serves many purposes, not the least of

way. This summer Jon Goodman came by. Who is he?

which it allows me to visit artist studios as I personally select all

Photogravure’s unquestioned contemporary master, the man who

of the work that is included. As I began the process this year, I

taught himself the photographic process that had been lost by the

looked back at last year’s results. Finally, we are truly developing

early years of the twentieth century. He was sent my way by

a buying audience for art and artists. I am grateful to all of you

Bernice Ficek-Swenson, a former Museum employee and now a

who came on board with your support and your money. As you

noted photogravure artist in her own right. I decided to introduce

know, this auction set the precedent for paying artists before

you to this marvelous art form through Bernie and Jon’s work.

paying ourselves.

(See page 61 for more about Jon Goodman and photogravure.)

The Museum has never asked artists to donate work—although

Also, if you turn to page 80 in the catalog, you will find my

some do. Instead, we allow them to establish their minimum

interview with John Colle Rogers, another introduction this year.

prices, an amount the Museum guarantees. The rules of the

John grew up in Grand Forks, where his father was the first Dean

game: The artists first set a minimum price, which they are

of the College of Fine Arts. He returned this summer as the first

guaranteed to receive. If work does not reach minimum, it will be

Visiting Artist at McCanna House, our new Artist-in-Residence

brought in by the Museum and returned to artist. Any amount

compound left to us by Margery McCanna.

over the reserve bid and the Museum’s equal match is split 50/50 between the artist and the Museum. For example: If a reserve bid is $200, and the work sells for $395, the artist receives $200 and the Museum receives $195. If the same work sells for $500, the artist and the Museum each receive $250.

We could not publish this catalog without the underwriting of our sponsors. Please take your business to these companies and individuals; thank them for their significant contribution; and note how many are locally owned and operated. Sometimes they say, “I don’t care if I get an ad, I just want to give to you guys.”

I have been pleased to see other auctions in the region have

Supporting cultural life is not in the interest of most chains but

adopted our policy. Therefore, instead of always asking artists to

rather has become the business of the butcher, the baker and the

donate, they now can count on actual income from auctions.

keeper of bees—and of Ellen McKinnon who buys her own ad

And, bless you; you have not forgotten that this is also a benefit

because it pleases her.

for the Museum so are generous in your bidding.

Remember, when you buy through the Auction, the price

Each year we widen our pool of artists with ties to our region and

includes framing or presentation. Frames are often custom made

Museum, thus creating a richer environment for art to flourish.

by the artists or the Museum staff who use archival materials. This

Not all of the artists live locally but they all have some

alone adds significant value to most of the Auction sales.

relationship with either the Museum of Art or the region. —Laurel Reuter, Director

Each summer I receive a stream of visiting artists who are passing through North Dakota. Many long-term relationships begin this

Lot #1

James O’Rourke (1934 - 2011) Visby (Red Cathedral), 1966 Oil on Masonite

All proceeds from this sale go to the North Dakota Museum of Art for enhancement of its collection.

38 x 62 inches (image) Range: $1,500 - 3,000 framed travels around Sweden. Visby is the capital of Gotland, the

James O’Rourke was born 1934 in Langdon, North

country’s largest island, which has been inhabited for more than

Dakota. Always interested in art, he studied under Cy Running at

7,000 years. Visby was invaded by thirteenth century Germans

Concordia College in Moorhead before moving to the University

who left behind spectacular medieval churches, including the

of Idaho to pursue French and architecture. Five years in the U.S.

cathedral painted here by Jim O’Rourke. Today Visby is a

Army, Second Cavalry Division, followed. That took him to

UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Sweden’s best-

Nuremberg for three years where he could look at art in all of his

preserved medieval cities.

off-hours. And he painted. Finally, in 1960 he stumbled into his life work. He and his late brother Orland Rourke founded the Rourke Art Gallery on June 18, 1960. (In the 1950s, James

And he nurtured artists. When Jim O’Rourke died, the High Plains Reader printed responses, including Jonathan Twingley:

reclaimed the full family name after the “O” was dropped during

I’ve often thought that making paintings and drawings for a living

immigration to the United States.) In 1975, O’Rourke partnered

is a ridiculous notion, and most of the time I’m right. But then I

with the Red River Art Center and formed the Plains Art Museum.

think about James O’Rourke and suddenly it doesn’t sound like

O’Rourke served as the director until resigning in 1987. The

such a crazy proposition after all: Poetry, Music, Art — yes! —

Rourke Art Gallery on South Fourth Street in Moorhead was later

YES! — these things matter, these things matter more than matter,

joined by the Rourke Museum in the old Post Office building on

these things add up to more than a life, each and every one of

Main Street when it was vacated by the Plains Art Museum,

them are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Like James O’Rourke.

which moved across the River to Fargo. And he painted. The work in the auction was based upon his

Twingley concluded, James O’Rourke always called me “Mr. Twingley.” I always called him “James.”

Lot #3

Lot #2

John Colle Rogers Oakland, California There Goes the Neighborhood (Giant

Lot #4

Egret, Never Get Out of the Limo), 2009 Lot #3, #4, #5

Giclee reproduction of watercolor 13.25 x 11.2 inches Range: $50 - 100

John Colle Rogers Oakland, California Glow Sculptures, 2010 Welded steel coated with Glow-In-The-Dark powder

See page 80 for an interview with John Rogers by Laurel Reuter

Each 3 x 3 x 3 inches Range: $75 - 125 each Lot #5

John Colle Rogers grew up in Grand Forks, but currently resides in Oakland, California. After years of creating multi-media installations, he has recently decided to make smaller, more intimate works. The tiny whimsical sculptures are inspired by modernist sensibilities, and their humor is accentuated by the glow-in-the-dark powder coating covering them. “Yup, they seriously glow in the dark!” maintains the artist.

There Goes the Neighborhood (Giant Egret, Never Get Out of the Limo) above is a giclee print from a watercolor series in which unicorns populate empty freeways bearing witness to the odd goings-on around them. The title is a spoof on a scene from Apocalypse Now where the character of Chef, after being frightened by a tiger, repeatedly screams, “Never get out of the

An architectural blacksmith by trade, Rogers is left with many

boat!” The giant avenging egret is a nod to the waterfowl who

“drop” pieces of tubing and angle iron. The works are created

grace Oakland’s industrial waterways, wading amongst the

with these leftovers, minimally manipulated and combined

broken concrete and submerged shopping carts. And the

spontaneously.

unicorns look on . . . .

Lot #6

Andrew Stark Fargo, North Dakota Winter Light, 2005 Oil on canvas 24 x 48 inches Range: $400 - 500

Andrew Stark says of his paintings, The surface texture,

since childhood, including theater, music, drawing, painting and

color, line and content of this painting is intended to visually

sculpture. He attended Minnesota State University in Moorhead,

express my reaction to the northern landscape. I am interested in

Minnesota, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts. In the

reinterpreting the traditional Modernist portrayal of the sublime

spring of 2009, Andrew completed a Master of Fine Arts with a

while directly confronting the optical nature of the painting

concentration in painting at the University of North Dakota in

experience.

Grand Forks. He is currently an instructor at Minnesota State University Moorhead and lives and works in Fargo.

Born in Two Harbors, Minnesota, Andrew David Stark grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and has pursued numerous artforms

Lot #7

Don Knudson Bemidji, Minnesota Bed Head, 2011 Poplar and pine 48 x 60 x 3 inches Range: $400 - 600 8

Marlon Davidson & Don Knudson have devoted their lives to art, first individually and ultimately as collaborators. The work in this Auction results from over a dozen years of working together in wood and collage to make relief art of varying sizes and shifting configurations. Their collaborative art works are in private and public collections throughout the United States and Europe. Both artists also work separately. For example, Don Knudson incorporates his familiar stick constructions into functional furniture, such as the bed headboard in this Auction. Davidson and Knudson were both born in northern Minnesota and attended Bemidji State College and the Minneapolis School of Art (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design). Davidson combined his art with teaching, first in public schools and later at Bemidji State University in the Visual Arts Department. Knudson has worked since the late 50s as a sculptor and furniture maker. We are lifetime artists. We have worked for more than four decades, both in the Twin Cities and later in Bemidji where we have lived for nineteen years. We think of our lives as an artistic statement. The great art historian Bernard Berenson wrote repeatedly about â&#x20AC;&#x153;life as a work of art.â&#x20AC;? Whereas one never arrives at that state, we find it a worthwhile journey. Making art objects is an everyday part of our lives. We think of our art as a way of explaining ourselves to ourselves. Through it, we try to understand our culture, and to live actively within it. We also explore the past through our artâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;especially the history of art. While we use a variety of materials, our main source of inspiration is nature and historical art. We worked and lived for twenty years in the Twin Cities and are aware that our work is informed by the art and artists we knew while living there.

Lot #8

Marlon Davidson & Don Knudson Bemidji, Minnesota Barn Board Quartet, 2011 Mixed media 64 x 1 x 3 inches Range: $700 - 800 9

Sponsored by All Seasons Garden Center

Lot #15

Dan Jones Fargo, North Dakota Meyers Pond, 2010 Oil on canvas 24 x 24 inches Range: $1,400 - 1,600

the original drawing, which is often quite realistic. I turn the canvas, scrape it, experiment with color and try to challenge the way I organize and frame a scene, coming close to and sometimes creating an entirely new landscape painting.

Dan Jones, who lives and works in Fargo, is among North Dakota’s few artists able to make a living from their art. He has long practiced plein aire painting, gathering with a group of fellow artists and going to the countryside to sketch and paint.

This piece was started in 2010 and finished in the spring of 2011.

The landscape of the Red River basin provides him with endless

The title Snow Too Soon was both a lament that the trees had not

subjects. In the summer of 2007 Jones joined fellow plein aire

even yet lost their leaves before it snowed, and that I wanted to

painters Carl Oltvedt and Robert Crow at the Plains Art Museum

be outdoors painting, not in my studio.

in the exhibition “Personal Journeys on Common Ground.”

Suzanne Fink received her BFA from Pacific Northwest College of

On April 7, 2009, Dan suffered an aneurysm. He was airlifted to

Art, Portland, and has studied at Oregon State University

the University of Minnesota hospital where he stayed until May

(Corvallis) and University of Minnesota (Minneapolis). As Director

1st. After a month at MeritCare, Fargo, he was admitted to a

of Education at the North Dakota Museum of Art, Fink develops art

skilled nursing facility specializing in brain trauma rehabilitation

programs for all ages. Specifically, she is instructor and

located in Mandan, North Dakota. Due to the severity of his

coordinator of the Summer Arts Day Camps as well as children’s

injury, Dan was unable to pick up a paint brush or a pencil for a

classes throughout the year. She works on Program Curriculum

long time. Finally, however, he has fully recovered. According to

Development for the Museum’s Rural Arts Initiative and Director

Reuter, “Dan has returned to painting with renewed vigor and

of ArtSmarts for at-risk teens. Through her efforts the Museum

deeply-felt gratefulness for another chance at life. I have always

received President Clinton’s Coming Up Taller award. In 2009, she

been a big fan of his drawing, considering him the best in the

won the University of North Dakota Frida Kahlo Phenomenal

entire region, especially with charcoal. Recently I challenged

Woman Award for her work as an educator and artist.

him, ‘Dan, I will give you a solo drawing exhibition,’ to which he

Fink has always been a working artist, but in 2009 she moved her studio from her home to a rented space in downtown Grand

replied, ‘Okay.’” The show will open within the next eighteen months.

Forks. She has shown regionally in venues throughout Oregon

The artist’s paintings are included in many museum, corporate

and in North Dakota at such places as Grand Forks’ Empire Art

and private collections including the National Endowment for the

Center and the Urban Stampede; the Northern Lights Gallery,

Arts, the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota, and the

Mayville; James Memorial Art Center, Williston; Cando Art

Rourke Art Museum, Moorhead, Minnesota. His work is handled

Center; and the University of Mary, Bismarck.

by Ecce Gallery in Fargo.

Lot #17

Brian Paulsen Lot #16

William harbort Minot, North Dakota Head Over Heels, 2011

Grand Forks, North Dakota Street No. 4, 2011 Watercolor 3 x 4.5 inches (image) Range: $350 - 450 framed

Mixed media with collage 36 x 28 inches with artist-painted frame

ingredients often found in our visual culture and in his art. Bill is

Range: $600 - 800

fascinated with individual ingredients and the infinite messages that can be expressed by combining and juxtaposing them through collage. It is through their relationship that he discovers

William Charles Harbort, a.k.a. Billy Chuck, is

meaning and expresses thought. Allusion, suggestion and

originally from New York where he worked as a commercial

investigation become an important part of the viewing

artist, a package designer for a major cosmetics company, an art

experience. Love, true-love, lust, temptation, luck, loss, life, and

director for a childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s educational software company, and an

death are recurring subject matters in his work.

automotive magazine illustrator. Harbort is currently a professor in the art department at Minot State University. Happy with his life in North Dakota and with teaching, he says, being a college professor has provided me the opportunity to explore painting; my commercial art background taught me the importance of marketing, sales and hustle. Harbort has an active exhibition record and regularly shows in many â&#x20AC;&#x153;lowbrowâ&#x20AC;? art galleries.

Harbort is known for his generosity, his belief that ordinary people should be able to afford his paintings, his wife family of wife, boys and greyhounds, and for founding NOTSTOCK, a rollicking three-day event where students and pros come together to produce posters, print editions, and experiments in silk screening. They are joined by some of the hottest modern, alternative, and local rock bands. At the heart of it all is Billy

His painting is often inspired by pop culture and bits of

Chuck, an associate professor of graphic arts at Minot State, who

ephemera. Paint-by-numbers, coupons and clip art, are just a few

knocks out silkscreen posters with the best of them.

Lot #18

Terry Jelsing Rugby, North Dakota Vanishing America, 2005 Oil on paper 17 x 23 inches (image) Range: $450 - 550 framed

Brian Paulsen makes small paintings incorporating places he calls home. He hails from Seattle, where, as a child and then a young man, his environs were circumscribed by his bicycle and later the public bus system. The work in the Auction springs from this early environment.

Terry Jelsing, a native North Dakotan, creates art that is

According to the artist, I saw a miniature juried show advertised

spiritually tied to the prairie landscape. He says, Although my

somewhere. I have been rejected from such exhibitions in the

work often references a common place shared by people who

past because my small works were slightly larger than the rules

live in rural environments, I am more concerned about exposing

allowed. So I made Street No. 4 as a true miniature, 3 x 4.5

the internal and private environments of one’s life. I try to make

inches. Actually I made four paintings, all based in Seattle.

the viewer aware of common, universal relationships by depicting this energy in painting, sculpture and drawings.

When I am in Seattle I take photographs of various neighborhoods, especially the immigrant neighborhood of my youth with

Born December 10, 1954, in Rugby, North Dakota, Jelsing’s

its blend of Asians and Jews, Italians and American Indians, and

artistic abilities appeared at an early age. By the time he

a mix of Northern Europeans. It would be boring to just copy the

graduated from Rugby High School he had several public

photograph in a painting so I add objects that seem to relate but

commissions to his credit. Before enrolling in the BFA program at

which fit no narrative.

the University of North Dakota, he completed a three-year tour

I was raised with geometry all around me especially in the materials of carpentry, building, repairing, making, and all those other useful occupations. My grandfather was a sign painter and a muralist. My father was an inventor and builder of houses, cabinets, and boats. My studio was in the same space as his wood and tools. The realm of Popular Mechanics—a service magazine founded in 1902 to present clearly written technical material to the average American man—schooled my

of duty with the Army in Europe. He later returned to Europe to study at the Institute of European Studies in Vienna, Austria, where he was strongly influenced by the German expressionists. In 1986 he completed his MFA at the University of New Mexico. During that time he was part of the first American post-modernist movement, experimenting with time-art studies and conceptual projects. His graduate exhibition, “Circus for Matthew,” received national media coverage and was published in Artspace.

imagination. I came to know illustration as practiced by

After graduate school, Jelsing taught multimedia courses at the

professionals, a world given form and order through signs and

University of North Dakota, served as director of Beall Park Arts

symbols and hand lettering. Still today, Paulsen hand letters the

Center in Bozeman, Montana, and became curator and then

exhibition titles on the walls of the North Dakota Museum of

Director of the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota. Later

Art—maybe the last museum in America to be thus graced.

named

Paulsen, one of North Dakota’s important painters, taught at the University of North Dakota until 2007. UND named him a

executive

director,

guided

the

museum’s

transformation of an historic International Harvester branch house into an award-winning arts facility.

Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor, its highest honor. In 2007,

In 2000, Jelsing established Eye In the Heart Studio in Fargo and

the North Dakota Museum of Art mounted a solo exhibition

began teaching art and design at North Dakota State University.

which resulted in a book about Paulsen’s work (2008). He has

In 2006, he relocated his studio to Rugby and began teaching art

been visiting artist at dozens of colleges and universities and

at Rugby High School. In 2011 he left teaching to work full time

shown in more than 100 juried exhibitions, eighty solo shows,

as an artist. His studio is a former granary on his family’s original

and 200 invitational exhibitions.

homestead outside of Rugby, where he lives with his wife Cathy.

All proceeds from this sale go to the North Dakota Museum of Art for enhancement of its collection.

Lot #19

Paul E. Barr 1892 - 1954 California Hills, 1939 Oil on Masonite 20 x 32 inches Range: $1,000 - 1,500 framed

Paul E. Barr saw and painted many scenes of North

In 1928, Barr was appointed Chairman of the Art Department at

America and Europe between the time he left the Tipton County,

the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, a position he

Indiana farm where he was born (1892) and raised, and the time

held until his death in 1953. In December 1938, thirty-one of

he died of a stroke in Grand Forks, where he had served twenty-

Barr’s fifty-six Badlands paintings were exhibited in Memorial

five years as Chairman of the Art Department at the University of

Hall of the North Dakota State Capitol Building in Bismarck.

North Dakota. During his career, he painted in more than half of

Described by then–Governor William Langer as a “visual record

the states in America and in more than ten foreign countries. He

of one of the state’s greatest scenic assets,” the paintings had such

maintained studios in New York City, Paris, Colorado, and

titles as Breaks of the Little Missouri, East Rim: Painted Canyon,

Indiana and attended eight different colleges and universities

Teddy Roosevelt’s Horsepasture Road, and Ranchhouse in the

including the Art Institute of Chicago, Sorbonne University of

Badlands. When parts of the exhibit toured in the East, viewers

Paris, and the universities of Colorado, Chicago, and Indiana.

were said to have expressed surprise at the organized pattern of

Subjects of his paintings included architecture, landscapes, and

light, shade, texture, and vivid colors (such as blue skies, purple

other scenery of Holland, Switzerland, and Mexico along with

rocks, scoria-colored buttes, and green plateaus) that Barr used

rivers, woodlands, southwestern landscapes, and national parks

as well as disbelief that such scenery existed. The scenes were all

and mountain ranges, such as the Rockies, Grand Tetons,

too real, however, to those who were familiar with them.

Catskills, Alps, and Tyrolese Alps. During the summer of 1938, Barr spent six weeks and traveled 2,000 miles in North Dakota’s

Barr died in late 1953 at the age of sixty-one, having suffered a

Badlands to produce fifty-six paintings of the area.

cerebral hemorrhage as a result of a stroke. His work lives on, though, in private collections all over the country, including that

Something of a prodigy, at the age of eleven he exhibited in the

of the International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation, the

Louisiana Purchase Exposition at the World’s Fair in St. Louis, and

North Dakota Museum of Art, and the North Dakota Governor’s

in 1916 he became an annual exhibitor at the John Herron

Office. His book North Dakota Artists, a collection of

Galleries in Indianapolis. He painted steadily, exhibiting his work

biographical sketches on notable visual artists from North

in the Marshall Fields department store and the Hoosier Salon

Dakota, was published posthumously in 1954.

and Galleries in Chicago; the Indiana Artists Club and Pettis

Galleries in Indianapolis; the Fort Wayne Art Museum; the

In addition to painting, Barr was also a lecturer, teacher,

Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, Florida; the William

illustrator, and poet. He served as State Chairman for American

Rockhill Nelson Gallery in Kansas City, Missouri; and

Art Week, has been added to the Honor Roll of the American

Rockefeller Center in New York City, among other places.

Artist Professional League, and co-authored with Eugene Myers the art textbook Creative Lettering.

Guillermo Guardia (Memo) was born in Lima,

Lot # 20

Peru, in 1975. He hails from an ancient pre-Colombian ceramic tradition. From the time he was little he was steeped in the

Guillermo Guardia

images and materials of those early potters. In particular, he

Grand Forks, North Dakoa

loved the work of the Mochica culture, a pre-Incan civilization

Mama Cora, 2011

that flourished on the northern coast of Peru from about 200 BC

Ceramics

to AD 600, known especially for its pottery vessels modeled into

20 x 26 inches

naturalistic human and animal figures. The work in the auction,

Range: $1,800 - 2,300

Mama Cora, is the Incan name of the wife of an Incan Emperor. I have always admired Renaissance art. When I was a teen I

lines crossed each other and became patterns. It made the figure

wanted to be like Michelangelo and sculpt the human body and

look as if it was built of individual pieces, becoming the

all of its beauty. Back in Peru I took numerous anatomy classes

inspiration for my current puzzle piece series. The first figure in

and learned to draw and model the human body, Guardia said.

this series was filled with these puzzle pieces. This puzzle figure was holding a single piece in his hand as if pondering where it fit

When I began my MFA degree at University of North Dakota, I

or where it came from. Perhaps the image of the puzzle piece

knew I wanted to continue using the human figure as my main

came from a childhood memory as I remembered my sister

form of art. After building numerous figures in clay, I concluded

always playing with puzzles, something that was beyond my

I was failing to create the figure I had envisioned. I was not

abilities and patience.

pleased with any of my new works, unsure of what direction to take my artwork. My frustration was compounded by the fact that

Most of us have felt the sensation of something missing and not

it was my first time in the United States, and my first time out of

knowing what it is. We have felt that uncomfortable feeling of

Peru. Everything was new for me. I had problems communicating

emptiness and are unable to describe it. I don’t believe life is a

with my peers, as it is different to learn English in a Spanish

walk in the park anymore. It is difficult and complex. The puzzle

speaking country than practicing it in the United States. Some

pieces represent those little parts of everyone’s life that shape us

days I went home with painful headaches.

as human beings.

In 2003, I turned my attention to building clay figures that looked

Guardia earned a MS and a MFA in ceramics from the University

as if they were thinking (The Thinker by Rodin was a big

of North Dakota, followed by a MS in industrial technology, in

influence). I quickly finished my first new figure. The new work

the summer of 2008. Currently he works for the North Dakota

looked good, but again, it didn’t match the image I had in mind.

Museum of Art as artist-in-residence, teaching ceramics

I sat in front of it, contemplated for a while, took a carving tool,

workshops in schools through the Museum’s Rural Arts Initiative

and began to draw some lines over the surface. Eventually those

and continues to exhibit throughout the United States.

Lot #21

Bernice Ficek-Swenson Minneapolis, Minnesota Promise of Water, 2010 Dust-grain copper plate photogravure Suite of twelve plates printed on Lanaroyal Paper 8.25 x 10.5 inches (image) Range: $600 - 800 framed

Bernice Ficek-Swenson has spent the last decade

flame hovering in a black field. This last fragment of fire invites

learning the photogravure process, to much success. She

the viewer to contemplate whether the fire will perish or persist.

explains, My photographic explorations are used to create copper plate photogravure etchings and have resulted in several suites of related prints: Putting Out Ashes, Vessels and Vestiges, Pyre and The Promise of Water.

In the series I am currently working on, The Promise of Water, I’m exploring metaphors of purity/purification, water as venerated source. Smooth white stones are arranged on ambiguous clear ground, which is free of specific associations to

Since 1995 I have been exploring the theme of elemental forces

land, country, or time. The stones are separated with water

of nature, photographing still-life materials of stones, ashes,

melting or washing over each. Water tears rock, thus becoming

cremated bones and most recently, water. I’ve become

soil, implying an act of weathering, of reducing substance to

particularly interested in active aspects of nature, both

their fundamental parts. I think of water as the blood of the earth.

regenerative and catastrophic. Elemental materials such as fire and water portray processes of destruction, as well as

Native North Dakotan, Ficek-Swenson is a Professor of Art,

transformation, implying a metaphor of deep geologic time.

University of Wisconsin–River Falls where she teaches

Stones are collected by all of us and belong to our “collective

printmaking and drawing. She also presides over the University’s

unconscious.” In researching about “stones”, I discovered that it

International Traveling Classroom. Other teaching experiences

is the only material that transcends time to convey the same

include conducting a Polymer Photogravure Workshop at the

meaning to all cultures. Use of stone conveys the notion of a

Athens School of Fine Arts in Greece and sessions in the

deep spiritual connection to earth. These materials are also used

exchange “Wisconsin in Scotland” at Edinburgh.

to suggest an inherent spiritual and/or ritualistic sensibility.

Her education included a BA and MFA from the University of

Pyre is a series of 12 related photogravures—two of which are in

North Dakota, Grand Forks, and an MA from State University of

the North Dakota Museum of Art Collection. I’m interested in the

New York, Oswego, New York. Before teaching full-time, she

duality of life that the fire represents, simultaneously conveying a

was Co-Director of Land Mark Editions, a fine-art print atelier in

sense of catastrophe and of life rejuvenating forces. Change is

Minneapolis which she founded with her husband, Master

inherent with fire, with the process of destruction begins the

Printer Jon Swenson.

cycle of renewal. Each print is intimate in scale and when grouped together the images create a large presence, thematically building on each other. The backdrop of stones and the structure of the flames take on a more naturalistic appearance and are intended to be ambiguous. The suite ends with a single

She has exhibited widely, including in solo shows at Camera Lucida, Galerie Domus, Universite’ Claude-Bernard, sponsored by Galerie Par-ci Par-la, Lyon, France, and the Gallery of Technohoros, Athens, Greece.

Lot # 22

Jon Goodman Williamsburg, Massachusetts Amaryllis Past Its Prime, 2002 Photograph/dust-grain photogravure 11 x 14 inches Range: $750 - 1,100 framed

See pages 61 to follow Jon Goodman’s rediscovery of the 19th century process of photogravure, which turned him into the contemporary master. His work in the Auction joins that of Bernice Ficek-Swenson, who worked at the Museum while an undergraduate at UND.

Lot # 23

Jon Goodman Williamsburg, Massachusetts Pictographs, Whitcomb Wash, Grand Canyon, 1991 Photograph/dust-grain photogravure 10.75 x 13.5 inches Range: $750 - 1,100 framed Jon Goodman is a photographer and printmaker. He has concentrated on reviving the dust-grain photogravure process

earth and water, water and sky, movement, and stillness. I don’t

(printing the photographic image from an etched copper plate in

generally work from a place of making documents. I subscribe to

ink) for more than thirty-five years. Today he is considered the

the more out-of-fashion idea of “romanticism” where I try to

Master of Photogravure on several continents. His personal work

communicate something through the medium of the subject, an

can be found in major collections in the United States and

emotional resonance on some level with the viewer.

Europe, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Bibliothèque National, Paris. He operates a small studio in New England specializing in the production of dust-grain photogravure.

Why photogravure? For me, photogravure is very beautiful. There are some things that I can do, in terms of tone, which I could not do by any other method. It is not the technical difficulties that interest me, but the end result. It is not a fast

In my personal work, I prefer to work with landscapes and

process, so I cannot be prolific. I rarely have time to do many of

natural forms. Why is that? I don’t really know. It is an

my own images. By modern standards and means, photogravure

environment that I am very comfortable with. I find that, in some

is somewhat antiquated. The prints on paper don’t jump out at

way, I am able to project something I sense about the work from

the viewer. If the time, however, is taken to further study the

the inside onto the external form. I am most attracted to those

images, the viewer may be touched in an unexpected way.

regions where the elemental interfaces occur: light and darkness,

Above: Lot #24

Gary Thomton Bemidji, Minnesota Memory Box, 2008 Curly Maple, Cocobolo, and Walnut; felt-lined interior 17.5 x 15 x 3.25 inches, with legs that remove to wall hang Range: $300 - 400

Lot #26

Duane Perkins Winnipeg, Manitoba Untitled, 2011 Porcelain 13.5 x 8 inch diameter Range: $700 - 900 framed

Gary Thomton makes furniture within the fine art tradition. He explains, After fifty-two years building and designing, I have decided to turn my attention to smaller projects. Furniture and furniture design have long interested me and give me an opportunity to work with fine woods and finishes while incorporating my sense of design. My first experiences included creation, repair and refinishing while working at a cabinet shop and furniture store. During the time I was in construction, I began to design and draw plans for homes and additions, paying special attention to details like

Duane Perkins has been working as a full-time studio

fireplaces and stairways.

artist for thirty years. Born in 1947 in Chicago, he lived there until he moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, to attend Bethel College

A large part of my education took place at a prestigious

where he majored in art and philosophy. During his last year he

architectural firm in Edina, Minnesota. I worked closely with

needed another credit so enrolled in his first ceramic class. A few

many architects and designers and learned about their creative

months later he graduated and moved to Winnipeg with his

process and sense of design. During this time I attended design

future wife and immediately set up his ceramic studio.

and architecture classes at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design to further refine my skills.

In the summer of 2007, the Winnipeg Art Gallery celebrated Perkins’ sixtieth birthday with a large exhibition about which

My work is simple, clean, and functional modern furniture. It is

they wrote: The vessel form is a constant within Perkins’

unique in style and well crafted in fit and finish. I maintain my

production. Wheel-thrown and then reduction-fired, the works

studio in Bemidji where I occasionally exhibit work. Often I work

are beautifully composed both formally and decoratively. The

from commission, but I also make work and later sell it.

firing technique leads to muted and subtle colour variations within the glazes, skillfully worked into abstracted designs recalling vegetation such as scattered leaves, twisting vines, and

Left: Lot #25

unopened buds. In other instances. . . . the rich colours and patterns of oriental fabrics are suggested. Over the last decade,

Gary Thomton

the dimensions of Perkin’s work have increased as he creates

Bemidji, Minnesota

broad-rimmed platters, flared bowls and vases of soaring heights.

Harp Leg Table, 2010

In contrast to their considerable sizes, the vessels’ decoration

Hard Rock Maple, Redheart, Jatoba, and Walnut

mirrors the delicacy of the porcelain body, prompting one writer

32 x 47 x 21 inches deep

to characterize his work as “noble vessel forms decorated with

Range: $2,200 - 2,500

lush surfaces.”

Sponsored by Minnesota Public Radio

They decided to drive into Bemidji for lunch. Upon their return, and much to their amazement, the painting Marley had been working on just before lunch was gone. The support board was leaning against the wall as he had left it. The cat had eaten the painting, savoring the egg yolk that served as the pigment binder. 39

Lot #47

Doug Pfliger Durango, Colorado They Fight Like Cats and Dogs, 2009 From the Sad Circus Series, #156/156A of Doug’s Dogs Wood, metal and paint Dog: 11.25 x 8.5 x 5 inches. Cat: 11.25 x 9.75 x 5 inches Range: $350 - 575

Doug Pfliger: Doug’s Dogs is the latest body of work in a series of themes that I have been developing since 1995 when the series started quite by accident. Originally they were called

All proceeds from the Pfliger sale go to the North Dakota Museum of Art as a gift from the artist.

“Scrap Pile Dogs.” I used found objects in their construction to add an intentional folk quality and to give them unexpected individual personalities. While their pedigrees may be questionable, their role as faithful friend and companion is clearly defined. To date one-hundredeighty-plus dog forms have been created, but a few cats and birds are starting to appear as in the work in the auction. Dog-shaped household objects such as oil lamps and purely decorative figures of dogs were popular in ancient Roman homes, and the very Roman tradition of an image of a dog inscribed with the words cave canem or “beware of the Dog,” persists today. I have been working in a number of mediums and themes since 1995. My art tends to be of a humorous, narrative vein that I want viewers to respond to on a physical level first, and then contemplate the deeper underlying message—if indeed there is

Lot #48

one. Most of Doug’s Dogs have been adopted by good homes,

Herman de Vries

for they do not bark or bite, require only an occasional dusting,

Winnipeg, Manitoba

and will not chew up your favorite pair of shoes. Born and raised in North Dakota, Pfliger lived in Minot, North Dakota for years while teaching art at Minot State University. He graduated from Minot State University with a BS in Art Education

Box Elder Hollow Form, c. 2009 Box Elder wood 7 x 10 inch diameter Range: $1,000 – 1,200

and taught art in public schools for thirteen years before completing his MF at the University of North Dakota in 1997. He

Herman de Vries was born at Ochre River, Manitoba.

taught at Northern State University Aberdeen, South Dakota,

He received an MA in Music Education from the University of

before moving to Minot in 2001. At the end of May, 2011, he

Sioux Falls and South Dakota State in the 1960s. Today he is a

moved to Durango, Colorado, just in time to miss Minot’s

retired business executive and a former professional singer and

historic flood.

music teacher. A self-taught wood turner, he began in 1997 and

Lot #49

Jessica Matson-Fluto Horace, North Dakota

was teaching classes a year later. Today he makes some of the

Dissolve Diptych, 2008

most beautiful wood-turned vessels and plates in the region.

Oil on canvas

The Box Elder Hollow Form in the Auction came from a tree in

13 x 10 inches each

North Winnipeg. One day he got a call from someone who saw

Range: $400 - 600

the tree being removed. Once de Vries arrived at the site, he saw the red in the wood and thought, I might be interested. But already, most of the wood was gone and I only got a few pieces. It was a very old neighborhood, so the tree was probably planted 100 years ago.

Jessica Matson-Fluto was born in 1980 in Spokane, Washington. She earned her BFA from Minnesota State University Moorhead in 2006. Two years later she graduated with an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She is employed as an adjunct art professor at Minnesota State

He continues, I never considered wood turning as art. For me it

University Moorhead and instructs workshops at the Plains Art

is a labour of love. For many years I worked with wood as an

Museum of Fargo. She and her husband currently live near Fargo,

amateur furniture maker, developing pieces in our home. It

North Dakota.

wasn’t until 1995 that I acquired my first lathe. Immediately, I was hooked.

According to the artist, many of the figures in my work are based upon imagined interpretations of myself and those familiar to me.

A few years later I went to a lonely spot on my parents

I often portray these “beings” as suspended, drifting, or trapped

homestead where I was born. I saw the old maple trees that my

in space. Such dreamlike images construe my own journey of

father and mother had planted in the early 1920s. Some were

self-discovery and represent an ongoing investigation after a life-

dying. Taking the wood from those dying trees and turning it into

altering, physical assault that changed my own perceptions and

a piece of turned art became a way of preserving something that

ways of seeing the world. That haunting experience prompted an

represented the future to my youthful father and mother. I am

ongoing series of self-portraits that continue to weave through my

their future, and the tree was their future. If I am able to leave

body of work. My images tend to either be strongly pre-

behind a legacy, it seemed only fair that the tree should be able

meditated, or come to the canvas involuntarily, guided by my

to do the same. I only helped a little.

painting medium.

Lot #50

Robert Crowe Moorhead, Minnesota Abstraction #17, 2006 Pastel and charcoal on paper 20 x 27 inches Range: $600 - 850 framed

Robert Crowe: Plein aire artist, Robert Crowe creates

in education, also at Moorhead. Here I became friends with

landscapes that convey the peace, beauty and tranquility of place

painting instructor Carl Oltvedt and fellow painter Dan Jones.

and time. His pastel work evokes the rhythmic pattern and impressionistic atmosphere of the Red River Valley and Lakes Country. This is echoed in his abstract work, represented by the work in the Auction. According to the artist, Having been born into the family who owned the Bergstrom and Crowe Furniture store in Fargo for ninety years, I spent most of my early life in retail and interior design. During this time I was making my own paintings and doing faux finishes in my spare time. Finally, I became frustrated with retail and decided to return from Dallas to Fargo to finish a long overdue art degree at the University of Minnesota [MSUM], Moorhead. While finishing my BFA, I began teaching at Creative Arts Studio in Fargo. There I became friends with Robert Kurkowski, the Studio’s Director, and through Bob I fell in love with teaching kids. After getting my BA, I decided to pursue a BS

Dan and Carl introduced me to plein aire painting—plein aire painters work on location to quickly capture the fleeting light effects that occur in nature. But all the time, I continued to make abstract paintings, I was exploring the same simple shapes and forms, but without narrative or content. Robert Crowe lives on the family farm near Comstock, Minnesota. In the summer of 2007, he showed at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo in the exhibition “Personal Journeys on Common Ground: Robert Crawford Crowe, Dan Jones, Carl Oltvedt.” He is represented by the Ecce Gallery in Fargo.

Lot #51

Madelyn Camrud & Adam Kemp Kellys Slough, 2011 Oil and collage on wood with wood collage 27.5 x 50.25 x 2.5 inches Range: $1,200 - 1,500

to offer me surprises. I transfer texture to landscapes I know and care about, most of them on or near farmland where I was raised, twenty-five miles southwest of Grand Forks. With its long, lovely horizon line and broad sky, this land I first saw is of special importance to me. Weather interests me as much as the land, and in the paintings I work to recreate the atmosphere or mood of a day in my

Madelyn Camrud & Adam Kemp: Native North Dakota artist Madelyn Camrud—who is also a poet—writes, Kellys Slough is about thirty minutes west of Grand Forks. A national wildlife refuge, it supports waterfowl by the thousands. Ducks and shorebirds abound. It’s a fantastic place to visit, especially during the migration season. Having grown up on a farm with a coulee running through, I am particularly fond of waterfowl. It pleases me a great deal to have wood duck and mallard nesting and swimming along a tributary of the English Coulee that flows through my backyard. This particular scene is from a photograph of Kellys Slough in late autumn, the clouds heavy, the landscape golden. Just before setting, the sun breaks through and casts light on the clouds in the east. A gray, cold time of year, the clouds take on intensity, warming to a rich Prussian blue. While a visual arts student in the mid-1980s, I focused on sculpture, which is probably why, in my paintings, I tend to work the surfaces I paint on, whether board, wood, or canvas, making them more palpable with spackling compound, putty, and any collage elements I can find. I use generous amounts of paint in a loose manner, glazing and reglazing, and allowing the medium

paintings, transferring what I recall of the light, clouds, time of day, and season when I first sensed the scene. Upon a suggestion by Justin Dalzell, it was my pleasure to collaborate with Adam Kemp on this piece. It is a joy to work with Adam on almost anything. He brings to mind poet Thomas McGrath’s famous line: “North Dakota is everywhere.” It seems to me, for Grand Forks, Adam Kemp is everywhere. He is at the hub of the fantastic network of artists in this town. He is a great teacher for our young people. He is entertaining, ambitious, and operates mostly on instinct, which, it turns out, is highly accurate when it comes to making art. He knows what will make or break a painting. In a relatively short time he made the wood construction for this piece, choosing shapes, sizes and colors that are just right. Most importantly, he has attached a catalog of his wood sources to the back of the work for historical purposes. Collaborator Adam Kemp declares, I first met Madelyn in 1987 and finally we are collaborating. She made the painting; I made the wood collage from scraps I have collected over the years from the old Sanders restaurant lost in the flood, from Alex and Stephanie Reichert’s Reeves Drive home, and from the old Norby’s store. (See page 14 for more information about artist Adam Kemp.)

All proceeds from this sale go to the North Dakota Museum of Art for enhancement of its collection.

Lot #52

Emily Lunde Harvest in the Field, 1989 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 24 inches Range: $750 - 1,000

Emily Lunde (1914 - 2003). Lunde’s father died when she

at it, and he said, “The horses are going the wrong way.” He

was five years old, and she and her two sisters were raised by her

could have told me that before.

immigrant grandparents on a farm near Oslo, Minnesota. Memories of those days are the inspiration for much of her work. Emily left home at the age of eighteen and went to work as a maid in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Although always interested in art, Emily married and raised four children before beginning to paint seriously in 1974. Emily Lunde is one of the state’s eminent folk artists and

I paint things I’d seen at grandma’s or in my own home, things I have attended –– weddings, carnivals, threshing gangs, things like that. It’s sort of a satire of the old days, some of it’s affectionate but some of it’s also a put-down. So there’s some kind of bite in The Gossips and there’s a little bit of hypocrisy in the one where the preacher comes unexpected. The people weren’t supposed to do any of the things they do in the painting,

unofficial cultural historians. She has recorded the life of the

but they did them when nobody was looking. I don’t know if that

Scandinavian immigrants who settled the prairies and small

is the thin line between comedy and tragedy.

towns of the Red River Valley during the early years of the twentieth century. She collectively categorized her work as a “satire of human nature as I alternately toast and roast those I love.” There was a time when I would paint on anything I could get a hold of. Any piece of board or paper. It was fun to see what things looked like. Then I’d take a painting somewhere and I’d be too bashful to go and pick it up. My first art exhibit was at the University; I never did find out what happened to the painting.

When I sit down and paint I laugh at my characters. They were like company. It was quiet here, my husband didn’t talk much and we didn’t go anywhere, so I painted. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t painted. That and the library. Painting’s getting to be work now. But then there are times when there is something I’d like to do. I’d like to do something entirely different once. But when I do that it isn’t what people want because they have an idea in their mind about what I do. So then you go back and make it. I don’t care if I never make a country

One of my first endeavors was to paint the farm home. I gave it

store again. I have hundreds of them out, all to different persons.

to my mother and she hid it in the attic. So I guess it wasn’t too

But they’re so tedious. I wouldn’t sell one for under $100 now.

good, at least she didn’t think so. My husband didn’t like my work in the beginning either. We got back from Fargo one time

Emily Lunde, “Amazing Emily: Reminiscences of A Folk Painter” Border

and he said, “Nobody is going to buy that stuff.” So I stuck them

Crossings, September 1985.

in the attic. I thought I was never going to paint again. But then I got some calls for the paintings and from then on he would help me frame them. One time I painted a threshing machine and after I got my horses all harnessed and everything my husband looked

JON GOODMAN

the areas not deeply etched—to rich blacks in the deepest areas,

By Andrew Wilkes

creating an extraordinary tonal gamut not available in silver prints. This range seems to become more expansive, its

No other method of printing multiple copies of black-and-white

luminosity more variable, depending upon the ambient light

photographs

with

levels of viewing—from the front, from behind, from a distance.

photogravure. A continuous-tone process so painstakingly exact

The varying density of ink creates profound subtleties in the

and complex as to be arcane, it produces prints unequalled in

print; in fact, it is not uncommon for photographers to discover

luminosity and dimensional definition. To Jon Goodman—

previously unseen details from their negatives in photogravures.

compares

subtlety

and

richness

contemporary photogravure’s unquestioned master—what its creators were searching for, “the light-drawn image in ink on

THE STUDENT:

paper,” is “a mystery of the highest order.”

Goodman is a self-admitted Romantic in the late-nineteenth-

First devised in 1878 by the Czech printer Karl Klic—although the technique also derived from William Henry Fox Talbot’s photoglyphic engraving—the process reigned supreme until 1918, after which it precipitously lost ground to quicker, cheaper, mechanical printing methods. By the late forties, despite the fact that such photographic pioneers as Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, and Paul Strand considered photogravure the apotheosis of the philosophical and aesthetic gesture of making a picture, the method had become largely a glorious memory—accorded the same awe as the illumination of manuscripts perhaps, but a memory nonetheless. Then, in the early seventies, Jon Goodman appeared. Himself a photographer, the Antioch College student found his imagination caught and held by the mystery and beauty of this all–but –vanished art. Over the last two decades, he has devoted himself with almost religious fervor to reviving and perfecting the method. He is arguably the only photogravurist working today to realize the dream of making a living solely from it.

Both as a photographer and gravurist, Jon

century tradition of William Morris. He has always resolutely rejected the current and fashionable in favor of, as he puts it, “the philosophy of craft—of making something well, of incorporating an aesthetic and vision which deepens the power of each picture.” Early on, the young photographer demonstrated his diametric opposition to prevailing counterculture aesthetics by selecting the 4–by–5 view camera over the more popular 35–millimeter model. Struck by the pristine clarity of its medium-format negative, he set out to master perspective, rise and fall, shift, tilt, and the swing of the view camera, using backcountry settings as his subjects. But Jon Goodman’s greatest, most life-altering discovery was still to come. While in high school, Goodman had been enormously impressed by Paul Strand’s “Mexican Portfolio”—considered with Camera Work and the Stieglitz gravures to be the most important works in photogravure ever done. Then, in 1971, at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, he was able to view closely Strand’s original prints. The experience would transform him: the pursuer of perfection had glimpsed his grail.

The French term photogravure traditionally

Subsequently, Goodman was awarded, through Antioch, the

refers to high-contrast photoetching, which produces a strictly

prestigious Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellowship, which

THE PROCESS:

black-and-white print. A photogravure is an ink print, pressed

funded a year of independent postgraduate study and travel

onto paper from a copper plate etched from a film positive. The

abroad. His course was clear—he would spend the year learning

heliograph, or intaglio photoetching, is a tonal process when

photogravure.

prepared by Talbot-Klic methods as Jon Goodman does.

Realizing that ambition, however, was far more tortuous than

Of the three main varieties of printing processes, the most

Goodman could ever have imagined; he wrote countless letters

common for five-hundred years was letterpress, which is

attempting to locate practicing photogravurists, but was

typographic; in letterpress printing, a raised surface is inked and

invariably disappointed. “It was something that was literally

printed, while cutaway areas remain white. Lithographic printing,

dead,” he recalls, “and such a mystery, that simply trying to find

the most popular technique today, depends on the mutual

out where I could go to learn, who knew about it was almost

antipathy of oil and water: the image to be printed is ink-

impossible.” But Goodman was a man with a mission who

receptive, while the blank areas are ink-repellent. Photogravure

would not be denied.

utilizes the intaglio printing process, which obtains tone from recessed areas on the plate that are etched to varying depths, thus holding different quantities of ink. The resulting print produces a continuous range of gray tones, from very light—almost white in

Following his graduation in 1976, he scoured Europe for a place to study, buoyed by his bible, Herbert Dennison’s A Treatise On Photogravure (first published in 1865 and reprinted in 1974 by

Visual Studies Workshop). Eventually, he happened upon the

year. The portfolio was printed at Goodman’s alma mater, the

Centre Genevoise de Gravure Contemporaine in Geneva,

Atelier de Taille-Douce, where the gravurist stayed for another

Switzerland, a printmaking establishment that made its presses,

year while the work was in process. The production of the

etching room, rudimentary-basement darkroom, and vacuum

portfolio was an extraordinary feat: twelve plates, six-hundred

table available to him. “The way I learned to do photogravure,”

prints per plate, totaling 7,200 final prints.

he remembers, “was to make every mistake possible and find the solution.” Still, after three frustrating months, Goodman’s vision quest began to bear fruit: he made a successful gravure plate.

Once the project was completed in 1981, Goodman settled in Millerton, living in the home of Hazel Strand, Paul Strand’s widow. Committed to ensuring that the photogravure process so

At the end of 1977, Goodman met with the Atelier de Taille-

cherished by her late husband would not be lost, Hazel joined

Douce in Saint Prex, Switzerland. Although the workshop’s

Aperture as a Goodman patron, helping him purchase equipment

raison d’être was making very fine à la poupée prints—multicolor

and supplies. It was here that he finally custom-designed and

engravings made in one pass of a press—the artisans expressed

supervised the construction of a press by a master machinist in

an interest in collaborating with him on photogravure. They were

Millerton from old Swiss plans. The Photogravure Workshop had

engravers and painters, and he a photographer, but working with

come to be.

them enhanced Goodman’s perspective and versatility in printing. The aspiring photogravurist was learning his craft.

THE MASTER: During the Millerton period (1978-1984),

Goodman produced in collaboration with Aperture the portfolios

THE CRAFTSMAN: Intent on making photogravures, Goodman

“The Formative Years: Paul Strand 1914-1917,” “The Golden Age

returned to New York in 1978 and, after talking with galleries,

of British Photography,” and the aforementioned “The Early Years:

artists, and publishers, contacted the Aperture Foundation. This

Edward Steichen.” He also produced single gravure prints,

felicitous meeting resulted in an invitation by the Foundation’s

including: The Spinner, by W. Eugene Smith; Migrant Mother, by

Director, Michael Hoffman, to test the process on a series of Paul

Dorothea Lange, and Wire Wheel, by Paul Strand. All the while,

Strand photographs. Goodman felt uneasy about the project,

he went on refining his technique, imparting a look and level of

since up until then he had worked only from his own negatives;

quality unique to his gravures, yet still maintaining fidelity to the

but passion prevailed, and his work commenced.

photographer’s vision far beyond what anyone thought possible.

Goodman’s first Strand gravures, Fisherman, Gaspe and Iris,

In the fall of 1984, Goodman moved the Photogravure Workshop

Maine, were made in collaboration with Strand’s master printer,

to its permanent home in Hadley, Massachusetts, a thriving arts

Richard Benson, in Newport, Rhode Island. Strand had died in

center affording him both solitude and community. He continues

1976, but Goodman says, “Benson knew each negative by

working with Aperture, having recently produced the Paul Strand

heart.” The test, which was to take two weeks, stretched into

White Fence gravure, made from the original catalog negative

three months, at the end of which he had the first plate.

and unpublished to date, and developing the large-format Hill

Goodman—with just enough money to feed his dog, if not always himself—was able to remain in Newport largely due to the generosity of Benson and his family. Then Hoffman suggested that gravurist Goodman relocate to Millerton, New York—where Aperture’s Strand Archive was situated—and talked of establishing the Photogravure Workshop, to be started up under the aegis of and with the financial aid of Aperture. At Millerton, Goodman began resurrecting “The Early Years: Edward Steichen,” the photographer’s last great project, which Steichen had asked Hoffman to undertake in 1968. The first plate had been well crafted and successful, but subsequent ones failed; ten years later, the portfolio remained unfinished. Goodman traveled to Germany and Switzerland on a stipend from Aperture

and Adamson portfolio. At the same time, he pursues such independent assignments as printing photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe, Joel-Peter Witkin, Brassai, Walker Evans, William Clift, and André Kertész, among others. “Somehow or other, people find me,” he notes. He also perseveres with his own photography, examples of which appear here. When asked what has motivated him to struggle so long for perfection and sacrifice so much to concentrate on photogravure, Goodman replies, “The pursuit of a mystery: a beauty dreamed of, the indescribable effect on a man’s soul of the marriage of ink and paper, born of a technical discipline, but whose magic lies in its very presence and effect on the viewer. Or,” he adds wryly, “maybe it’s as simple as stubbornness.”

to iron out details, then, back in America, arranged to make the 62 plates in Benson’s studio. Creating the twelve plates took one full

Text of article printed in Aperture #133, Fall 1993.

Explore . . . Endure . . . Evolve . . . North Dakota Quarterly is proud to support the North Dakota Museum of Artâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Autumn Art Auctionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;part of our ongoing support of art and artists in the upper Midwest. North Dakota Quarterly typically showcases local or regional artists on our covers, and the painting (left) by Kim Bromley is on the cover of our latest issue, available at the Museum shop for $8 each. Now in its 76th year of publication, North Dakota Quarterly is a stimulating collection of essays, short stories, poems, and reviews. Kim Bromley, Wood Duck, 2001.

North Dakota Quarterly, Merrifield Hall Room 110, 276 Centennial Drive Stop 7209, Grand Forks ND 58202-7209, (701) 777-3322 e-mail: und.ndq@email.und.edu www.und.nodak.edu/org/ndq

John Colle Rogers Interview with Laurel Reuter John Rogers has spent a couple of months this past summer as the first visiting artist at the Museum’s new Artist-in-Residence compound, the McCanna House retreat. This is the first time his work has been included in an Autumn Art Auction. He does, however, have a work he made in collaboration with his father, John Rogers, in the Museum’s permanent collection. LR: John, what brings you to Grand Forks? JR: I grew up here, and find all this space very calming, a nice

have taken a very different, very academic track if I hadn't gotten sideswiped doing sculpture my senior year of college. I've always made stuff and had studied Japanese brush painting and blacksmithing all through college to balance out the heavy studying. I went to Japan part of my junior year, and when I came back I had the idea to combine the brush painting and the blacksmithing to make curvy, pointy sculptures that referenced calligraphy. I got hooked on making stuff and made a conscious decision to pursue grad school in art rather than a more academic line. LR: Tell me about your art.

counterpoint to the frenetic energy of the San Francisco Bay Area.

JR: Much of my work deals with the use and abuse of power. But

My father, John H. Rogers, was the Dean of the College of Fine

I try to infuse the work with humor. Like a bazooka that shoots

Arts at the University of North Dakota, and I grew up roaming the

rubber chickens. Or the giant model railroad scale dioramas

halls of the Hughes Fine Arts Center. My mother Ann was his

where two fantastic armies are clashing while glow in the dark

sidekick when it came to supporting him and entertaining visiting

skateboarding zombies zoom around them. Some pieces are

artists. With her interests in art and literature, they brought a lot

more sober, like the Shot Boxes, which are 3" hollow steel cubes

of creativity into my life as well as into the community. My father

I shoot with a .44 Magnum, or the Basilisks, which are forged

passed away in 2005, and I lost my mother this past February

two headed dragon-like creatures with gothic wings made of

after looking after her for a few years. So now I have a little more

sheet brass or copper. They all deal with the forces we have

freedom of movement and have come back to the place that is

harnessed which sometimes get a little out of control.

good for my heart. LR: Will you come back?

LR: How have you found the Grand Forks art community? JR: I turn left at Fargo and keep driving until I see you.

JR: Absolutely. In the same way that many folks here have a lake

Having seen the love people here showed for the arts in the

home, I would like to find a prairie home for myself. I have been

1970s and early '80s, I am not surprised by the great turnout at

looking in the Larimore area and will probably buy something in

the Museum events and gallery openings I have attended. People

the next year or so. I plan to spend a month or so here in the

here know good stuff and are eager to show their appreciation.

spring and the same in the fall. Take a break from California

There is a lack of distance between the artists and supporters that

Craziness. . . .

I find refreshing. And of course, the artists themselves have

LR: Tell me about your life as an artist.

shown a great amount of mutual support and interest in what each other is doing. I think that even with the internet there is a

JR: I support myself as a blacksmith, doing gates and railings in

feeling of not being grounded to either coast that gives folks here

my shop in Oakland. This allows me the freedom to take time off

a creative freedom that is as wide open as the physical space we

when I have a big show or, like now, when I feel like I am turning

inhabit.

the corner with a body of work and need some immersion time to pull the right heart strings to break stuff loose. I oscillate

LR: Tell me a favorite memory of your childhood in Grand Forks.

between making work that is very cerebral and conceptual, to

JR: I remember playing outside one time and feeling a storm

working directly and intuitively with materials—just goofing

come in. Even before the sirens went off, my mother had already

around. There is a pretty strong community of artists out in

phoned up and ordered me home. The wind was picking up and

Oakland, and we are constantly having shows and lectures and

I was pedaling away like mad when I looked up and the sky was

stuff. I get tapped for many local things as well as putting my

that crazy yellow-green color. It still sends chills up my spine.

work out there through various curators and contacts.

That day would tie with watching the Northern Lights in the

LR: Did you ever consider not being an artist? 80 JR: I did my undergrad in Japanese studies and probably would

backyard with my folks and a handful of other neighbors.... yup, the sky.

North Dakota Museum of Art Board of Trustees

North Dakota Museum of Art Foundation Board of Directors

Evan Anderson

W. Jeremy Davis

Ganya Anderson

Nancy Friese

Kjersti Armstrong

Bruce Gjovig

Victoria Beard, Treasurer

David Hasbargen

David Blehm, Chairman

Laurel Reuter

Julie Blehm Chad Caya W. Jeremy Davis

North Dakota Museum of Art Staff

Virginia Lee Dunnigan Susan Farkas Bruce Gjovig Kim Holmes Mary Matson Dianne Mondry Laurel Reuter, President Alex Reichert Pat Ryan Lois Wilde Joshua Wynne Wayne Zimmerman, Secretary

Justin Dalzell Suzanne Fink Becca Grandstrand Guillermo Guardia Kathy Kendle Wayne Kendle Eric Langenfeld Brian Lofthus Laurel Reuter, Director Gregory Vettel Matthew Wallace Justin Welsh

Corinne Alphson, Emerita Barb Lander, Emerita Darrell Larson, Emeritus Robert Lewis, Emeritus Ellen McKinnon, Emerita Douglas McPhail, Emeritus Sanny Ryan, Emerita Gerald Skogley, Emeritus Anthony Thein, Emeritus

Katie Welsh A dozen part-time, intern, and student employees and over fifty volunteers