Ed Kerns

Last updated

Ed Kerns (born February 22, 1945) is an American abstract artist and educator. Kerns studied with the noted Abstract-Expressionist painter, Grace Hartigan and through the elder artist came to know and work with many artists of that generation including, Phillip Guston, Willem de Kooning, James Brooks, Ernest Briggs, Richard Diebenkorn and Sam Francis.

Contents

Early life

Born in 1945 in Richmond, Virginia, Kerns started painting at a young age. He attended the Richmond Professional Institute, receiving his BFA in 1967. He went on to the Maryland Institute, where he studied with painter Grace Hartigan. Here, Kerns received the Hoffberger Fellowship and graduated with an MFA in 1969. [1]

Painting career

Kerns first gained exposure in 1972, when he was commissioned by art collector Larry Aldrich to paint 100 paintings over the course of the year as gifts. [2] That same year, Kerns had his first solo art show at the AM Sachs Gallery in New York. Over the course of the 1970s and 80s, Kerns formed a close partnership with the Rosa Esman Gallery and exhibited ten solo shows there.

Of his work in the late 1970s and early 80s, gallery coordinator Judith Stein says, “He works slowly, creating no more than ten large paintings a year. His media are acrylic, sand, and thread, the last used to stitch together sections of canvas. Often plywood or Upson board is used as support.” [3]

Teaching

Kerns began teaching in 1970, as an art teacher at the Bentley School in New York City. [4] In 1972, he became head of the Art Department at the Baldwin School, and 1974, he headed the Art Department of Friends Seminary. In 1980, he left Friends Academy and moved to Easton, Pennsylvania, where he became the Head of Lafayette College’s Art Department. [5] In 1988, he was selected to serve as the first Eugene H. Clapp II Professor of the Humanities at Lafayette College. [6]

Collaborations

In 1989, Kerns collaborated with poet Lee Upton on a series of paintings. The series culminated in a show, A Collaboration of Poetry and Images, which was exhibited throughout Pennsylvania. [7] Kerns has also collaborated with Rev. Ted Loder, illustrating four books written by the reverend. [8]

In 2007, Kerns collaborated with artist Elizabeth Chapman on “Word, City, Mind: A Universal Resonance,” an exhibit that used "paint, text, collage, and image, the exhibit focuses on the resonance between neurological, cosmic, and man-made forms". [9]

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Collaborations

Group exhibitions

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Sheeler</span> American painter

Charles Sheeler was an American artist known for his Precisionist paintings, commercial photography, and the avant-garde film, Manhatta, which he made in collaboration with Paul Strand. Sheeler is recognized as one of the early adopters of modernism in American art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Bellany</span> Scottish painter

John Bellany was a Scottish painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Emerson Baum</span> American artist and educator (1884–1956)

Walter Emerson Baum was an American artist and educator active in the Bucks and Lehigh County areas of Pennsylvania in the United States. In addition to being a prolific painter, Baum was also responsible for the founding of the Baum School of Art and the Allentown Art Museum.

Peter Ford Young is an American painter. He is primarily known for his abstract paintings that have been widely exhibited in the United States and in Europe since the 1960s. His work is associated with Minimal Art, Post-minimalism, and Lyrical Abstraction. Young has participated in more than a hundred group exhibitions and he has had more than forty solo exhibitions in important contemporary art galleries throughout his career. He currently lives in Bisbee, Arizona.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosalyn Drexler</span> American visual artist, novelist (1925-2014)

Rosalyn Drexler is an American visual artist, novelist, Obie Award-winning playwright, and Emmy Award-winning screenwriter, and former professional wrestler. Although she has had a polymathic career, Drexler is perhaps best known for her pop art paintings and as the author of the novelization of the film Rocky, under the pseudonym Julia Sorel. Drexler currently lives and works in New York City, New York.

Rigo Peralta is a Dominican artist living in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grace Hartigan</span> American painter

Grace Hartigan was an American Abstract Expressionist painter and a significant member of the vibrant New York School of the 1950s and 1960s. Her circle of friends, who frequently inspired one another in their artistic endeavors, included Jackson Pollock, Larry Rivers, Helen Frankenthaler, Willem and Elaine de Kooning and Frank O'Hara. Her paintings are held by numerous major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. As director of the Maryland Institute College of Art's Hoffberger School of Painting, she influenced numerous young artists.

Larry Fink is an American photographer best known for his black-and-white images of people at parties and in other social situations.

Peter Grippe was an American sculptor, printmaker, and painter. As a sculptor, he worked in bronze, terracotta, wire, plaster, and found objects. His "Monument to Hiroshima" series (1963) used found objects cast in bronze sculptures to evoke the chaotic humanity of the Japanese city after its incineration by atomic bomb. Other Grippe Surrealist sculptural works address less warlike themes, including that of city life. However, his expertise extended beyond sculpture to ink drawings, watercolor painting, and printmaking (intaglio). He joined and later directed Atelier 17, the intaglio studio founded in London and moved to New York at the beginning of World War II by its founder, Stanley William Hayter. Today, Grippe's 21 Etchings and Poems, a part of the permanent collection at the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, is available as part of the museum's virtual collection.

Ryo Tokita' is a Japanese born artist who emigrated to the United States in 1969, settling in the town of Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, outside Nazareth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C. Grimaldis Gallery</span> Contemporary and modern art gallery

The C. Grimaldis Gallery is a contemporary and modern art gallery established in 1977 by Constantine Grimaldis. It is the longest continually operating gallery in Baltimore, Maryland. The gallery specializes in post-WWII American and European art with an emphasis on contemporary sculpture. In addition to representing approximately 40 nationally and internationally established artists, the gallery is responsible for the estates of Grace Hartigan and Eugene Leake. The gallery has been responsible for hundreds of important solo and group exhibitions that have launched and sustained the careers of many artists from the United States and abroad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennie Augusta Brownscombe</span> American painter (1850–1936)

Jennie Augusta Brownscombe was an American painter, designer, etcher, commercial artist, and illustrator. Brownscombe studied art for years in the United States and in Paris. She was a founding member, student and teacher at the Art Students League of New York. She made genre paintings, including revolutionary and colonial American history, most notably The First Thanksgiving held at Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth, Massachusetts. She sold the reproduction rights to more than 100 paintings, and images of her work have appeared on prints, calendars and greeting cards. Her works are in many public collections and museums. In 1899 she was described by New York World as "one of America's best artists."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raoul Middleman</span> American painter (1935–2021)

Raoul Middleman was an American painter known for his "provocatively prolific work--primarily traditional, including figure studies, landscapes, and still lifes--and for being a megawatt personality." Middleman was a member of the Maryland Institute College of Art faculty from 1961 on. In a 2009 Baltimore City Paper article Bret McCabe described Middleman's paintings as featuring "... expressive strokes, a tight control over an earthy palette, a romantic tone slightly offset by a penetrating eye —becomes distinctive even if you haven’t seen them before, so strongly does he articulate his old-fashioned sensibility in his works.”

Karl Stirner was a Germany-born American sculptor known internationally for his metalwork. His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, the James A. Michener Art Museum, the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey, the Delaware Art Museum, and other locations. Stirner also participated in exhibitions in Taiwan, Hungary, and Italy.

Holly Trostle Brigham is an American figurative painter whose feminist self-portraiture focuses on female subjects drawn from mythology and history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Brown Goldberg</span> American artist

Carol Brown Goldberg is an American artist working in a variety of media. While primarily a painter creating heavily detailed work as large as 10 feet by 10 feet, she is also known for sculpture, film, and drawing. Her work has ranged from narrative genre paintings to multi-layered abstractions to realistic portraits to intricate gardens and jungles.

Dahlia Elsayed is a New York-based painter, writer, and teaching artist whose work explores the relationships between language and landscape. Her work has won awards and been shown at galleries and art institutions internationally.

Lydia Panas is an American photographer.


Ilse Getz was a German-born American painter and collagist active in New York and Newtown, Connecticut, from the 1950s through the 1980s. She specialized on three-dimensional works, made mostly with found objects. She exhibited at several galleries in New York City including the Bertha Schaefer Gallery and Rosenberg Gallery, as well as in Europe, namely in Switzerland, Germany, France and United Kingdom.

Frances Julia Farrand Dodge was an American artist and teacher.

References

  1. Gold, Barbara (October 31, 1971). "Hoffberger Show: A Matter Of Touch". The Sun.
  2. Sloane, Wick (January 3, 1982). "He's one of the 5% who can make living with art". The Express Sunday.
  3. "'Evidence of Activity' at Pennsylvania Academy". Antiques & the Arts Weekly. September 3, 1982.
  4. Kaplan, Naomi (October 10, 1980). "His modern art beckons to the past". The Express Entertainment Guide.
  5. Gordan, Beth (April 25, 1980). "New Art Dept. Head Plans to Expand Studio Courses". The Lafayette.
  6. "Kerns selected to serve in Lafayette position". The Intelligencer/Record. June 15, 1988.
  7. Welker, Janie (February 23, 1990). "Lafayette collaboration is a triumph". The Express.
  8. "Kerns selected to serve in Lafayette Position". The Intelligencer/Record. June 15, 1988.
  9. "'Word, City, Mind' Exhibit by Prof. Ed Kerns and Artist Elizabeth Chapman on Display in Skillman Library". Lafayette College. Retrieved 10 July 2013.