ART DEPARTMENT > SCHMIDT ART GALLERY

Waldemar A. Schmidt Art Gallery
Winter-Spring 2008 Gallery Schedule

Devour Everything:
Drawings and Digital Images by Bryan Van Donslear
January 7 – February 1, 2008
Reception: Saturday, January 26, 6–8 p.m.

Like many artists, Iowan Bryan Van Donslear keeps a sketchbook close at hand to record inspiration when it strikes. Rather than synthesizing his experiences into a unified work of art, Bryan records the flow of his mind as it intersects with the culture-at-large which surrounds us. Each page becomes a daily log of the visual flow of multisensate inputs encountered in a day in the life of a 21st Century artist. Ranging from obituary photographs to alchemical symbols, the results are uniquely fascinating in their ability to trigger active thinking and looking.

Interspersed within the pages from his sketchbooks are experimental images created from a montage of photographs and found digital materials which are manipulated to create abstract mandalas of lush color and soft form. The logorrhea of his sketchbooks is replaced by an absence of words and rational construct, providing an interplay between intellectual and visual pleasure.

Photographs by Sarah Small
February 4 – March 1, 2008
Opening Reception: Wednesday, February 6, 6–8 p.m.

New York photographer Sarah Small explores the energy, intimacy, and potentiality of discrete moments of interaction. Her subjects are diverse, yet the connections she draws between them are surprisingly fresh and full of lyrical delight.

Juxtaposition and contrast in her work fuel a playful sense of both the absurd and the mundane. Her photographs infuse the everyday world with energetic wonder. Animals and dolls become human. Humans become animals and dolls. The body becomes an explosion of humanistic power.

For more information on her work: www.sarahsmall.com

The Lost Drawings of George Wachsteter
A 30 Year Retrospective of Radio, Television, and Theatrical Caricature
March 10 - April 10, 2008
Opening Reception: TBA

Self-taught New York illustrator and caricaturist George Wachsteter drew extensively from 1937-1970 for the New York Times Sunday Drama page, the New York Herald Drama section, the New York Journal American Drama and Television sections, and for NBC, ABC, and CBS Radio and Television Networks. Next to Al Hirschfeld, he was one of the most prodigious and visible theatrical caricaturists working during the '40s and '50s.

Until recently, however, the prodigious life's work of George Wachsteter had all but faded into obscurity after a gradual loss of his vision tragically ended his drawing career prematurely in the 1970s. Hundreds of his ink drawings, sketches, and paintings have sat unseen in boxes for decades until they were discovered after his death in 2004.

With the generous cooperation of his family's estate, the Wartburg Art Gallery is proud to present a retrospective of his work which will firmly establish George Wachsteter as one of the preeminent caricaturists in midcentury American Theater, Radio, and Television.

Gallery visitors will be delighted by George's finely crafted drawings and watercolors of such celebrated performers as Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Humphrey Bogart, Jackie Gleason, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Jerry Lewis, Marilyn Monroe, Zero Mostel, Louis Armstrong, Ed Sullivan, and Johnny Carson.

Senior Exhibition
2008 Graduating Art Majors
April 12 - May 25, 2008
Opening Reception: TBA

An exhibition of new work by Wartburg College graduating seniors: Katherine Dunn, Heidi Hanson, Kathryn Hora, Trenna Kusick, Krystal Larsen, Matthew Ollendick, Sarah Roberts, and Rebecca Urlaub.