karl umlaufN A T U R A L E V O L U T I O N

karl umlaufN A T U R A L E V O L U T I O N

karl umlaufN A T U R A L E V O L U T I O N

FOREWORD: Out of the Shadow – An Unending Quest for Excellence and Experimentationby Patricia B. Meadows

INTRODUCTION: Pulling Slag and Refining It – Persistence in Karl Umlauf’s Artby Katie Robinson Edwards, Ph.D.

CAREER AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Karl Umlauf – Natural Evolutionby Karl Umlauf

An exhibition organized by Gallery 2 David Dike Fine Art & Estates

Natural EvolutionJune 6 - June 28, 2008

Fort Worth Community Arts CenterElaine Taylor, Gallery Manager

Fort Worth, Texas

CURATED BY: Russell Tether

F O R S H I R L E Y

Sometimes it is more difficult to establish your own style or gain recognition when you

are “in the shadow” of a parent’s reputation. Umlauf’s father, Charles Umlauf, was a well-known

and respected sculptor.

Karl Umlauf spent his entire life surrounded by art and making art. Abandoning a

promising career in music for art, he perfected his craft by studying with great artists. From

his college professors to his current colleagues, Umlauf is constantly learning and seeking

new ideas.

His work – paintings, sculpture, prints and drawings – traces a continuance of subject

matter and themes. During his student days, he learned perspective, color, contrast and form

from his drawings of steel factories. Other early drawings and paintings reveal his fascination

with the movement of water and the effects of light on water.

Another frequent subject has been geological formations interpreted in cast paper, fiber-

glass, wood, metal and paint. He has looked at themes of regeneration and salvage from both

a human and an industrial standpoint, and he has explored such difficult subjects as war and

death. He has approached all of his subjects with respect and has presented them as objects of

dignity and elegance.

Never content to stop learning and experimenting, Karl Umlauf has “pushed” sculpture,

drawing, painting, printmaking and mixed media to express his art. While he continually

learns, he also continually teaches. From his own university days until now, Umlauf has taught

at the college level throughout the country. He has had a distinguished career as a professor, as

a guest lecturer, as an esteemed artist-in-residence and as a mentor to students and colleagues.

He leads by example by continuing to explore, to question, to enter competitive shows

and to try new approaches. This never-ending quest for excellence and experimentation is

what life and art should be.

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Out of the Shadow – An Unending Quest for Excellence and Experimentationby Patricia B. Meadows

Patricia Meadows is the Senior Curator and Collections Manager of the Texas Sculpture Garden and the Hall Collection, Frisco, Texas.

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Catalogue No. 8, Slag Pullers, 1959

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Pulling Slag and Refining It – Persistence in Karl Umlauf’s Artby Katie Robinson Edwards, Ph.D.

Karl Umlauf’s 1959 painting, Slag Pullers, is quintessentially American: two Pittsburgh

steel workers skim bubbling slag from a vast cauldron of molten metal, splashing the detritus

on the factory floor. The men and the fiery furnace are symbolically intertwined through the

artist’s vivid, expressionistic brushstrokes. Umlauf’s dramatic brushwork shows a firm mastery

of the human figure as well as his attentiveness to late 1950s styles. By 1959, he had already

studied at the University of Texas at Austin with William Lester and Everett Spruce, whose

influences are palpable in Slag Pullers and other works of the period.1 The painting shows a

distinctive blend of regionalism (in this case, steel workers sketched while on a road trip through

Pittsburgh) and abstract expressionism. The artist painted it when he was barely twenty.

Slag Pullers forecasts themes in Umlauf’s artistic trajectory for the next fifty years. It points

to his abiding interest in everything related to the geophysical world, to technology, craft and

the artistic process. As an undergraduate, Umlauf studied anthropology and geology, both of

which figure prominently throughout his oeuvre. Much of his art deals with the relationship

of human beings to nature’s raw materials. He has been particularly interested in burial sites,

which symbolically represent the earth reclaiming its inhabitants. Umlauf often deals with the

charged interaction between two poles (e.g. human or animal and nature). Those poles fre-

quently relate to the formal foundations of art making, such as abstraction versus figuration

or high relief versus low relief. These are modes he has explored throughout his career.

Slag Pullers offers a prescient metaphor for Umlauf and his art. “Slag,” a byproduct of

the smelting process, is created when molten, impure substances rise to the surface. But slag

serves an important function by protecting the molten metal from oxidation while it smelts.

Lightweight (like volcanic ash, another type of slag), the cooled slag can be put to new uses

in concrete, in building roads or simply as ballast.

Karl Umlauf is the slag puller: his art reveals the purer metal beneath the surface

detritus. But as the consummate artist, he also utilizes the slag itself, transforming the seem-

ingly impure into a revitalized form. He has been refining slag for fifty years and counting.2

The 1950s and 1960s featured other seminal works relating to human production on

various levels. In addition to the steel industry pictured in Slag Pullers and the wondrously

abstracted Steel Mill (1959), Umlauf also sketched, painted and studied railroads and oil

refineries in works like Dallas Rail Yard (1958), the futuristic Refinery and Pipe Fitters (both

1959). In the elegant and delicately colored Chili Factory (1959), Umlauf maintains the look

and feel of his industrial production series, but here he quietly hails the unsung blue-collar

heroes of the Austex chili factory. (Located then at 310 San Antonio Street in Austin, it was

once the largest chili and tamale canning factory in the country.) Chili peppers for Austex

were grown locally, just south of Austin. Umlauf masterfully navigates the style and subject

matter of a specific regionalism within an abstracted architectural framework.

Moving more directly into the landscape in the 1960s offered Umlauf the chance to

explore pure abstraction. Morning Fog, Storm Clouds and Midnight Over West Texas Plains (all

1960) are putatively landscape scenes, painted with a confident and relaxed brush. The 1960s

works were made after a transforming fellowship at the Yale-Norfolk Summer School in

Connecticut. The fresh influence of teachers such as Jon Schueler and Jack Tworkov is felt in

Umlauf’s most freely expressionist paintings, such as Evening Field and Autumn (both 1961).

Umlauf had long realized that a truly close observation of nature yields abstraction; these

teachers and others brought him closer in touch with that awareness. Yet despite their non-

representational gestures, works such as these still remain firmly grounded in a landscape

motif. Sometimes the only indication of the originating subject matter is in the works’ titles,

such as The Cave (1962) and Incline (1963).

Umlauf has always relied on drawing as the backbone of his craft. He uses drawing to

record scenes and test out new ideas. His drawings can be meticulously worked out, or they

can be like shorthand notes. Drawings from the late 1960s, Incline IV (1966) and Cliff Face

(1967), show Umlauf’s economy of line as he explored pure, reductive abstraction. The

ostensible subject matter is a hyper focused detail within the landscape, but these drawings

show Umlauf working in a minimalist vein.

In 1969 and into the 1970s, Umlauf made what seemed like a radical shift: he temporar-

ily abandoned canvases to create bas-reliefs and cast forms. But rather than being a departure

from his earlier work, the relief forms marked a logical perceptual step for the artist. Once he

made that leap, he found it tremendously rewarding and pursued it for nearly a decade.

Formation III #2 (1969) exemplifies that perceptual shift. By the late 1960s, Umlauf had

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Catalogue No. 9, Steel Mill, 1959

Catalogue No. 3, Dallas Rail Yard, 1958

Catalogue No. 1, Chili Factory, 1959

explored virtually every possible variation of creating topographical space out of two dimen-

sions. In 1969, he cast it into three dimensions. A work from this period, Formation III #2 (cast

in fiberglass and painted with a blue metallic lacquer) is the abstract landscape made tangible.

For an artist so focused on tactility and technology, the relief works were a natural progression.

They led to the vacuum-formed plastic series, Umlauf’s most pristine and advanced works to

date. For inspiration, he again looked to American industrial ingenuity, this time taking a cue

from the automotive industry. (In 1956, he built a 1932 Ford Coupe from the frame up. He has

it today in Waco.) “The final reward,” Umlauf recalled in 2002, “came into my life when I found

that vacuum-forming took my work to a new plateau of technological sophistication, procedural

predictability, and an overall profoundly new aesthetic.”3 Two exemplary works represent the so-

phisticated glamour of this long-running series. Formation Series VI #4 (1973) is like a pearlized

chocolate topography – with gills. The glossiness of the series can be deceiving, seeming perhaps

too commercial in appearance. But they remain mysteriously indefinable and elusive. The pearl

and lacquer finishes reflect light, making it hard to pin down these elegant

hybrid forms. Formation XXXXIV (1979), one of the later works in the series, is more adamantly

like a mountainscape, complete with irregular channels.

As rewarding as the vacuum-formed series was, it was time consuming and laborious.

Umlauf had mastered it, and began to yearn for a more direct process again. The Legend Series

of the 1980s came after he discovered cast paper as a support. Originally working with clay,

he could spontaneously shape the supports and texturize them directly. In short, he returned

to experimentation. He carved and shaped the wet clay into the form he desired, then put a

fiberglass mold over it. Finally he compressed the one hundred per cent cotton paper pulp

into the mold, creating a cast. Once he pulled the cast, he mixed colors and applied sands

and gels to it in ways not possible with the vacuum-formed series. (See Legend Series XVI #3

[1985], and Legend Series V, Legend Series XVIII and Legend Series XXIII [all 1986].) One senses

Umlauf’s delight in returning to a malleable surface that retained his mark. The Legend Series

is thus far more expressive, retaining the feel of the artist’s hand in the finished object.

The return of Umlauf’s physical touch to the works create a vaguely anthropomorphic

feeling to some of the 1980s work. Their surfaces are rough, their edges jagged. These evolved

into series such as the weapon-shaped Ancient Warriors (1989). The rugged Ancient Warriors

are conceptually and visually the polar opposites to the vacuum-formed works. In that sense,

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Catalogue No. 12, Storm Clouds, 1960

Catalogue No. 26, Formation III #2, 1969

Catalogue No. 11, Midnight Over West Texas Plains, 1960

they complete Umlauf’s aesthetic circuit.

In 1989, Umlauf began working at Baylor University in Waco as the artist-in-residence.

He was in his fifties and at the top of his game. Soon after he began working in Waco, a

curator at the Strecker Museum (now the Mayborn Museum) introduced him to a group of

30,000 year old bison bones, even permitting him to borrow bones and a skull. The bison

complemented his interests, as he had already been working with Indian burial sites and

making emotionally charged works based on death camps. Umlauf’s 1990 Pleistocene Memorial

incorporated fiberglass, wood and real animal bones. The relief work feels like a cenotaph for

an ancient mammal society.

The next key defining experience seemed like a natural extension of the theme: the Waco

mammoth site excavation. Historically, it was a relatively new find. The protruding bone of a

mammoth was first discovered along an eroded hill in 1978. By 1990 when Umlauf visited,

the bones of fifteen mammoth elephants – estimated to be 68,000 years old – had been

uncovered. (Eventually the site included twenty-nine mammoths.) The site was the scene of

a late Pleistocene tragedy in which a herd of mammoths were drowned by what was probably

a flash flood. The remains indicate that the mammoths attempted to form a defensive circle

against the oncoming threat of water. In addition to numerous drawings, Umlauf managed

to make a series of depression casts directly from the site, a remarkable and unrepeatable

opportunity. The bones offer a heartrending twist: adult mammoths attempted to lift the

younger mammoths out of the water’s reach. Umlauf made many works based on the mammoth

excavation; the original depression casts he made still generate inspiration and new work.

His drawings of the 1990s (see, for example, The Mammoth Site [1993], in charcoal)

and assemblages reveal an especially refined grace. He revisited themes of archaeological and

architectural exploration, but with a newly infused darkness. For example, the 1995 and 1996

drawings, both titled Blast Furnace, are reminiscent of Piranesi’s sinister imaginary prisons of the

eighteenth century. (Those etchings were a response to Enlightenment era philosophy, just as

much of Umlauf’s work responds to the current status of culture and technology.) But unlike

Piranesi’s inventions, Umlauf’s furnace in the small 1996 drawing is all too real, anchoring the

center of the image with an ominous glow. The drawing is like a reliquary. And where have the

factory’s slag pullers gone?

Umlauf made countless trips to animal and human burial sites. These bones are not

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Catalogue No. 33, Legend XVI #3, 1985

Catalogue No. 32, Legend XVIII, 1986

Catalogue No. 36, Pleistocene Memorial, 1990

Ancient Warrior, 1996

molten impurities floating to the surface, productively put to use again. These are the tragic

products of natural and cultural events. Yet in the larger context of billions of years of geologic

history, they are an allegorical slag that has “risen” to the surface of the earth’s crust. Umlauf

sketched constantly, made casts and turned many of these sites into three-dimensional shrines.

Thus the slag reemerged metaphorically in the 1990s in unexpected and unsettling

forms. Later in the decade he developed a series based on salvage yards, which are essentially

graveyards of industrial artifacts. The products so gloriously created by the once-booming

steel factories have now become slag themselves. Umlauf transformed the detritus of salvage

yard metal into masterful drawings, such as Heavy Metal II (1993) and Industrial Waste (1994).

He fleshed them out in relief with mixed media compounds in works like Retrieval IV (1995).

To see how Umlauf has maintained his concerns while refining his process, consider

one of his most recent series, the Cross References.4 Here Umlauf deftly mines his own visual

archives, integrating the themes that have occupied him for decades. Just as he explored

industrial technology derived from geology in Slag Pullers, the Cross References involve a far

more sophisticated, twenty-first century geological technology. They also display the remark-

able refinement and evolution of Umlauf’s media. Cross References are multi-paneled works

that generally include three media: photographic images with archival ink on vinyl, Formica

laminate, and mixed media compounds – all on wood and canvas. Dr. Shane Prochnow, a re-

search scientist at Baylor University’s Center for Spatial Research and Department of Geology,

provided the photographic images.5 The Cross References feature two types of Prochnow’s

Geographical Information Systems images: a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) showing

topographical land formations, and seismographic images based on subterranean acoustic

surveys. In other words, Umlauf alternates between using images taken high above and deep

within the earth. Such play in perspective is key to the entire series. And, as in Slag Pullers,

Umlauf is interested in all aspects of the process: the surface as well as what is beneath it. In

the Cross References, he adds in the bird’s eye satellite view.

A prime example, Cross Reference II (2007), is a large diptych in shades of rust and black.

The left panel features a DEM with an Aspect layer to highlight a New Mexico mountain

range. Although it depicts a topographical view of mountains and valleys (note the enhanced

dark shadows), the vinyl surface is completely planographic. In contrast, the right panel of

Cross Reference II is a highly textured physical relief of a cliff face (also in New Mexico),

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Catalogue No. 44, Blast Furnace, 1996

Catalogue No. 38, Heavy Metal II (detail), 1993

Catalogue No. 40, Retrieval IV, 1995

painted by Umlauf. The left panel maps dozens of square surface miles on a horizontal plane

(the earth’s surface); the right panel depicts a few feet of the vertical cliff face (an alternate view

of the earth’s surface).

The distinctions between the panels can be further mined. The left panel represents a

geophysical record of a specific location: it appears factual, trustworthy. But the DEM image

has been enlarged to the point of appearing slightly rasterized, a visual effect the artist likes. It

is also a marker of the advanced state of visual domination in the world. Consider today’s ubiq-

uitous GPS devices and the layperson’s ready access to Mapquest and even Google Earth. The

enlarged maps in the Cross References remind us that, despite stunning scientific advances,

current technology will one day be outmoded. In the same way, the industrial landscape has

shifted over the decades: the open-hearth furnace seen in Slag Pullers is a thing of the past. And

in the twenty-first century, China far surpasses the United States as the leading producer of

steel. The world is changing dramatically, and Umlauf is there to poetically record it.

In contrast to the left panel, the right panel of Cross Reference II was not created from com-

puterized technology. Instead, it was painted entirely from human recall. It can be thought of,

then, as a metaphorical map of a section of Umlauf’s visual and creative memory. The surface is

heavily textured and layered, as vivid memories tend to be. Yet even though the painting ostensi-

bly represents a vertical slice of landscape, it could just as easily depict a horizontal surface, per-

haps a region of countless square miles seen from a bird’s eye perspective. Or it could be seen as

a powerfully magnified microscopic view. The extreme realism of the memory is portrayed as an

extreme abstract relief. Umlauf is the authority in oscillating between these realms.

Throughout the Cross Reference series, narrow strips of black Formica provide formal and

figurative counterpoints to the photographic and painted panels. The black Formica partially

frames the geological explorations within, picking up on the dark regions within the colored

panels. Black, considered achromatic in color theory, is sometimes thought of as the absence of

light. In the Cross Reference paintings, the black strips are the only visually impenetrable regions,

signaling the limitations of physical vision. They are also perhaps defiant, a private retreat into the

unmappable depths of human memory and human creativity.

There is a profundity to Karl Umlauf’s art that makes it hard to apprehend quickly. His

entire oeuvre is like a geological pie-shaped slice running from the middle of the earth up

through the architecture of cities both real and imagined. Like this imaginary wedge of the

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Catalogue No. 63, Cross Reference II, 2007

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Catalogue No. 69, Pleistocene Memorial, 20081Slag Pullers is arguably one of Karl Umlauf’s finest early works. Thanks to the generosity of a donor, it will jointhe permanent collection of the Tyler Museum of Art.

2The superb monographic catalogue that accompanied Karl Umlauf’s retrospective in 2002 provides a rich variety of essays and chronology that trace his artistic career. (See Karl Umlauf: The Journey, foreword by PatriciaB. Meadows, introduction by Vincent Mariani and primary essay by David Deming, Iron Bridge Press, 2002.) The visitor to the current exhibition should consult that catalogue for the most comprehensive record of Umlauf’s activity. In this essay, published on the occasion of his updated major retrospective at the Fort WorthArt Center (curated by Russell Tether), I only intend to pick out certain themes and trace continuity in Umlauf’sstyle. His work has become ever more refined and his determination remains undaunted into 2008.

3Karl Umlauf, quoted in Karl Umlauf: The Journey, Iron Bridge Press, 2002, p.43.

4An earlier version of my discussion of Cross References appeared in the brochure for the Wichita Falls Museumof Art exhibition, “Karl Umlauf: Retrospective” (curated by Cohn Drennan) in January 2008.

5Recently Umlauf has also been working with Baylor geologist Dr. Stacy Atchley, who has provided him with fossil images from layers of earth millions of years old.

earth, his work incorporates past, present and future. It encapsulates all aspects of the terres-

trial. Umlauf functions on so many levels simultaneously, yet with a persistently subtle hand.

Grasping his fifty years of art takes patience – the same kind of patience the artist has dedi-

cated to his investigations for decades. But Umlauf is also a rare breed of artist in that virtually

all of his series are interrelated, fitting together like an enormous jigsaw puzzle. Or like an

unimaginably deep slice into the earth. Consider, as a final example, one of Umlauf’s most

recent works: Pleistocene Memorial (2008). The work is iconic in form: a vertical diptych,

balanced by symmetrically placed black Formica. (The same Formica anchors his Cross

References, tipping the viewer off to the interrelatedness of the various works.) It features a

compression cast of the mammoth site made in 2000. Above the image is a high-resolution

digital ink-jet print of the site. This latest work is a natural outgrowth of his 2007 Cross

References, which charted the interior and exterior of the earth from various vantage points.

Now, in Pleistocene Memorial (2008), Umlauf travels upward from the seismographic depths

of the Cross References to paleontologic depths, to today’s digitized techniques of recording

images. Umlauf performs a kind of autobiographical mining as he returns to his own history

of image making to create new interpretations of the earth and what it contains. He deftly

navigates the terrain: putting the geographical part in relation to the whole, positioning his

own current practice in relation to his entire artistic career. Like the slag pullers, Karl Umlauf

is quintessentially American.

Katie Robinson Edwards, Ph.D. is the Assistant Professor of Art History at the Allbritton Art Institute, Baylor University.

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1939I was born to Angeline and Charles Umlauf in Chicago, Illinois, where both attended theChicago Art Institute. My father was a sculptorand taught at the Chicago School of Sculpture.

The Forties

1940sWe moved to Austin, Texas in 1941, when my fa-ther accepted a teaching position at the Universityof Texas in the art department.

The beautiful old stone house where I grew upwas located on a hill at the edge of the ColoradoRiver where the Tonkawa Indians once lived. Ata very young age I was looking for arrowheadsand artifacts and climbing cliffs to explore caves.The land offered many secrets and I spent manyyears exploring.

I have vivid memories of a period through thelate 40s of my fathers’ creative activity as a sculp-tor, with trips to commissioned sites in San Anto-nio, Dallas and Houston, as well as areas wherespecial support work was accomplished such asHarding Black’s (walk-in) firing kilns located inSan Antonio.

My father often took me with him on these tripsand at these times, a special friendship and admi-ration was formed from the many visits to MarionK. McNay’s residence in San Antonio. Seeing hernew acquisitions of impressionism, post cubismand the modernists, as well as (at her request) har-vesting her oranges from the courtyard trees werealways on the agenda. My father had been com-missioned to create a gravesite memorial for Mrs.McNay, to be installed before her death.

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Karl Umlauf – Natural Evolutionby Karl Umlauf

“At a very young age I was looking for arrowheads

and artifacts and climbing cliffs to explore caves.

The land offered many secrets and I spent many

years exploring.”

Left:Catalogue No. 1Chili Factory, 1959Oil on Linen30 x 40 inches

Above:Catalogue No. 2Owl, 1958Oil on Linen24 x 18 inches

The Fifties

1952In 1952 I became handicapped by the Polio epidemic, which confined me to the hospital forthree months and left me handicapped for the rest of my life. Without my mother’s persistent exercise routines and encouragement, as well asthe assistance of my life-long friend, Dr. Jim Elliott, I might never have walked again.

Mid 1950sAfter a year of rehabilitation I returned to seriousmusic studies, which since 1947 had prepared me for a career in music with the Viola as my primary instrument. Also trips to the Aspen, Colorado Music Festival and being selected for the University of Texas Junior String Program and Orchestra as well as the All State Orchestrareinforced these goals.

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Catalogue No. 3Dallas Rail Yard, 1958Oil on Linen26 x 20 inches

Left:Catalogue No. 4Pipe Fitters, 1959Oil on Linen30 x 24 inches

Above:Catalogue No. 5Refinery, 1959Oil on Linen22 x 28 inches

Below:Catalogue No. 6City, 1959Oil on Linen40 x 50 inches

“Because I worked in lumber yards and related

factories, my subject matter at first consisted of

industrial landscapes, water fronts, interiors of

steel mills and factory machine shops, cotton gins,

brick factories, cams, petroleum refineries, etc.”

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Late 1950sHowever, upon entering the Graduate program atthe University of Texas at Austin in 1951, I finallyrealized I had serious doubts about the unendingdisciplines a musician must follow. I decided tomajor in painting and drawing – an area where Ihad also studied with Kelly Fearing and others atthe University’s Saturday art classes for high schoolstudents. This program was created by Kelly Fear-ing and proved to be a strong learning center formany serious students in the Austin area.

My undergraduate years were a very formative period for me. The University of Texas at Austinhad, at that time, one of the most highly rankedart programs of all the art institutes and colleges in the country. With a studio faculty of 14, and anart history faculty of six, this was a very formativeprogram. There were many choices a studentcould make and the quality of work in painting,drawing, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture and art history were outstanding.

I primarily studied with Everett Spruce, JohnGuerin, Loren Mozley and William Lester. Sprucehad a strong influence on my work since our families were very close. He was an inspiration tome throughout my childhood. My work gravitatedtoward Spruce’s portrayal of big solid cliff forma-tions and the structural elements of the landscape.The other faculty of artists also provided strong visual influences of their works, which as studentswe witnessed in local and faculty exhibitions.

Because I worked in lumber yards and related factories, my subject matter at first consisted of industrial landscapes, water fronts, interiors ofsteel mills and factory machine shops, cotton gins, brick factories, cams, petroleum refineries,etc. These mechanized spaces offered an intrigu-ing linear relationship that allowed me to createunique compositions in charcoal/pastel drawingsand oil on canvas paintings. Many of these workswent into corporate collections thanks to Kela and Dick Bourdon, who loved the work and gaveme annual solo exhibitions in their gallery inLongview, Texas.

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19

Upper Left:Catalogue No. 7Tyler Refinery, 1959Oil on Linen16 x 20 inches

Left:Catalogue No. 8Slag Pullers, 1959Oil on Linen34 x 42 inches

Above:Catalogue No. 9Steel Mill, 1959Oil on Linen18 x 24 inches

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“So in a matter of minutes I realized I was going to com-

pletely change my painting emphasis in image, palette,

composition, etc. This was a total creative shock to me,

but probably the best thing that could have happened.”

The Sixties

1960In 1960, my junior year of college, I was a Fellow-ship Recipient to the Yale Norfolk Program in up-state Connecticut. I boarded a Greyhound bus fora journey through the eastern half of the UnitedStates, spending one week on the road with stopsin St. Louis, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh andNew York City. I traveled by bus at night andspent the days in the cities, which provided nu-merous opportunities to create many drawings ofindustrial waterfronts, steel mills, cityscapes andindustrial centers. Visits to major museums ineach city were also very inspiring and was one ofmy first confrontations with some major artistswork. When I arrived in Norfolk, Connecticut afew days early for summer school, Bernard Chaetwas there. We talked in my Studio space and Ishowed him the numerous drawings of industrialsites I had completed on my trip through some ofthe industrial cities. When I told him I was plan-ning to use these ideas for my paintings while atNorfolk, he promptly informed me that “with thebeautiful landscapes at our disposal in the foot -hills of the Berkshires, that would be the subjectmaterial.” So in a matter of minutes I realized Iwas going to completely change my painting emphasis in image, palette, composition, etc.

This was a total creative shock to me, but proba-bly the best thing that could have happened. Itbrought about a new emphasis on pure landscapeand major influences by nationally recognizedartists such as Jack Tworlcov, Charles Cajori, JonSchueler, Gabor Perdi, Richard Lytle, RichardBermilen and Bernard Chaet, and changed my entire outlook on art and life as an artist.

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Upper Left:Catalogue No. 10Morning Fog, 1960Oil on Linen36 x 46 inches

Lower Left:Catalogue No. 11Midnight Over WestTexas Plains, 1960Oil on Linen30 x 40 inches

Above:Catalogue No. 12Storm Clouds, 1960Oil on Canvas64 x 52 inches

22

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Trips to New York, Boston and New Havenopened doors to new plateaus, challenges, artistictechniques, styles, metropolitan environs and theemotion and energy of the inner city. New rela-tionships with students from all over the country– from major art schools and institutes – wereformed. This was another opportunity to viewoutstanding student work and hear ideas, atti-tudes and the family of work habits. I began toform opinions and interests from which potential

graduate schools would be considered. Upon myreturn to Texas and the University art department,I found I looked at my sources for subject matterwith a different focus, emphasis and change of priorities. The finished product, whether adrawing, painting or print, had a much differentpurpose and presence, surface, image and com-positional structure.

Far Left:Catalogue No. 13McNeil Lime Company,1960Gouache on Paper14 x 8 inches

Left:Catalogue No. 14Newell Salvage, 1960Oil on Linen36 x 46 inches

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1961The spring of 1961 was a major turning point inmy life. I graduated with a BFA, was asked to bean instructor of life drawing and painting at theLaguna Gloria Museum of Art, married my highschool sweetheart, Shirley Ann Franks, and wonthree fellowships for graduate study. The HeinzGraduate Fellowship at Carnegie Mellon Univer-sity, The University of Washington Graduate As-sistant Professorship and a Cornell UniversityGraduate Assistantship were all very compellingoffers with outstanding programs. I decided to accept Cornell’s offer and upon arriving I had my hopes completely realized. The school, itslandscape, program and faculty were exceptional.I primarily studied with John Hartel, but therewas also a well endowed visiting artist program. I was instrumental in getting Charles Cajori andJohn Schueler to come as visiting artists. Theycontinued to impress me with their concepts andworks. George Morrison was also brought in dur-ing my program of study, as was Milton Resnick,Stephen Greene, Stuart Brisley, Jason Sealy andJacques Lipchitz.

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Left:Catalogue No. 15Autumn, 1961Oil on Linen34 x 32 inches

Above:Catalogue No. 16Evening Field, 1961Oil on Linen44 x 40 inches

26

The deep gorges and rock formations in upstateNew York are numerous, but of paramount intensity around Ithaca. I was very motivated in capturing their abstract majesty, their sheervertical format and presence, especially the waythe ice and frozen waterfalls interacted with theformations. The on-going Abstract ExpressionistMovement in New York where I met artists suchas Tworkov, deKooning, Mitchell, Marca Relli andCajori made lasting impressions on me. While atCornell, I showed work at Frank Roth’s AmericanGallery in New York City and the Everson Mu-seum in Syracuse. As a graduate assistant I taughtdrawing to architecture students. I showed themthe beauty of the landscape regions by takingthem down to the gorges for drawing and designassignments.

Left:Catalogue No. 17The Cave, 1962Oil on Canvas70 x 62 inches

Right:Catalogue No. 18Incline, 1963Oil on Canvas68 x 62 inches

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Catalogue No. 21Cliff Face, 1967Ink on Paper30 x 24 inches

1963After graduating from Cornell in 1963, my wifeand I moved to Philadelphia where I began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. TheArt History Chairman, Frederick Hartt, was inter-nationally known as a renaissance scholar who,with the assistance of Eugene Markowski, had established a new undergraduate program atPenn. The following year our first son, StuartAllen, was born. I enjoyed historical Philadelphiaand appreciated its proximity to New York andWashington, D.C. We lived between Whitemarshand Conshohocken on a historical stagecoachroad to Valley Forge. Our house was an old four-story frame and I had plenty of studio space. Icontinued working on paintings and drawingsthat concentrated on the ground and rock forma-tions of the area and expressed an intense interestin geological structures found in eroded surfaceson shifted igneous plano-graphic structures. Manytrips were made to the Bethlehem limestonequarry, which had an 800-foot pit. When in thepit of the quarry, I was told not to wander too farfrom the exit road and to listen for the floodwarning siren. When the siren sounded a personhad 10 minutes to get to the road to avoid drown-ing because the pit filled very quickly with water.These frontal and profiled formations created abstract opportunities for me, which after mystudies in geology, gave my work an authenticityor deep personal awareness of what my structuralconcepts were about.

It was at this time I was informed by an adversary of Fred Hartt, while he was on sabbatical, that ourBFA undergraduate program would be “phasedout.” This was devastating to our entire department.

1966In 1966, I relocated my wife and young son fromPennsylvania to Iowa where I accepted a teachingposition at the University of Northern Iowa. I con-tinued my landscape studies on the tributarieswhich ran into the Mississippi River. Some werecascading and turbulent streams or river forma-tions. The paintings maintained the abstract struc-ture of the earlier work as a result of my interest in

the accelerated movement of the water in opposi-tion to the immobile rock formations it collidedwith. An overriding theory I placed on this naturalphenomenon was the “soft versus hard” elementand all the variables that followed.

After living on the east coast for six years, and ayear and a half in the Northern Midwest, I decidedto relocate. After interviewing with five universi-ties, I accepted a teaching position with East TexasState University, and their vibrant and innovativestudio art department. The director had a vision of how good this department could be and placedan emphasis on studio art. The faculty was young,representing major art schools throughout thecountry and producing very profound creativework. I also found the students were culturallyhungry, energetic and capable of producing out-standing work. It was a very positive environmentand my work continued to grow to new levels ofpersonal identity through technical surface quali-ties and highly selective subject matter. The imagesstill carried an emphasis on abstract geologicalstructures, streambeds, jetties and cliff formations.

After winning awards in the midwest and eastcoast it was reassuring to still find my work beingaccepted throughout the Southwest and in national exhibitions.

Right:Catalogue No. 19Incline IV, 1966Ink on Paper32 x 18 inches

Far Right:Catalogue No. 20Northern Rim, 1966Ink on Paper30 x 26 inches

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Catalogue No. 22Incline I, 1968Acrylic on Board10 x 14 inches

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“...as a result of my interest in the accelerated move-

ment of the water in opposition to the immobile

rock formations it collided with…I placed on this

natural phenomenon the “soft versus hard” element

and all the variables that followed.”

Far Left:Catalogue No. 23Stream Bed, 1967Oil on Canvas44 x 32 inches

Left:Catalogue No. 24Rapids, 1968Oil on Canvas78 x 62 inches

Below:Catalogue No. 25River VIII, 1968Oil on Canvas60 x 44 inches

Right:Catalogue No. 26Formation III #2, 1969Cast Fiberglass and Lacquer on Wood58 x 48 x 5 inches

Far Right:Catalogue No. 27Formation XXXXIV, 1979Vacuum-form Plastic28 x 26 x 4 inches

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Late 1960sMany things happened in the late 60s, not onlywas our second son, Kurt Aaron born, but I alsofound a loft studio downtown in the small city of Commerce, Texas. The studio was on the townsquare and provided me a new reality and energyto work within. Prior to this move I had workedfor three years in a 2-car garage.

As a painter I began to look for more challengingfeatures in my work. I became disenchanted withpainting techniques I had digested through histor-ical traditions and wanted to reach for moreunique visual solutions. As the 60s drew to aclose my work focused on a more pure abstracteddisplacement of the landscape form.

1969By 1969, with material assistance from a researchgrant in plastics from BTSU’s Organized ResearchProgram, I was experimenting in raw textural re-lief surfaces and collage patterns of metal and fab-ric. This quickly proceeded toward fiberglasslayers and aluminum inlays over predesignedfoam reliefs. I was also using acrylic lacquer with a Murano topcoat, giving the work a multicoloredpearl glow over the underlying layer of color.These works were a highly innovative support to the technological shift in the world of art. I re-ceived a lot of praise and attention and the workwas included in many curatorial and competitive

exhibitions. As the work developed, it becamemore technically unique and formally captivating.I worked for several months in a sign factory as anapprentice in Houston for the primary purpose oflearning how to thermo heat plastic and vacuumform it over molds that I created for this purpose.The sign-factory manufactured signs for Wal-Mart,Exxon, etc. and also buoys for the United StatesCoast Guard. This subsequent work was a majorturning point for me. I built the molds for thesevacuum forms with masonite and wood laminatesover a reinforced ribbed surface adhered to ply-wood. After using dental plaster to fill in the

“I worked for several months in a sign factory as an

apprentice in Houston for the primary purpose of

learning how to thermo heat plastic and vacuum

form it over molds that I created for this purpose.”

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cavities, these molds were extremely heavy anddifficult to move. My assistants and I had to takethem down a long narrow staircase from my loftstudio in the downtown area. We transportedthem to an abandoned furnace building on theUniversity campus where I had built a vacuumformer. The finished sheet of formed plastic wasthen returned to the loft studio where I proceededwith the extremely detailed spray coats of lacquerand Murano pigments. Many of these molds weremade over the next eight years and they changedfrom a format of geometric interaction to having avery organic contour inside, both in the depth ofrelief and along the edge.

During the eight years I was involved with themedium of thermo-heated plastics, I was very for-tunate to have several outstanding studio appren-tices. They assisted in fabricating the vacuumforming machine which rolled on tracks into alarge electrical 50,000 watt oven where the Plexand Uvex was heated for forming. They were alsoinstrumental in helping me cut the patterns forthe surface formations along with reinforcing theribs for the surface structure on the molds. Thesemolds had to be strong enough to sustain 25,000pounds of vacuum or suction pressure.

After the sheet plastic was formed, a liquid rubberskin was applied to the reverse side. When therubber skin was completely dry it was cut with asingle or double bladed knife to create the linesand separate color patterns of the work. Then thework was trimmed, mounted and framed. All ofthese steps were very time consuming and re-quired unimaginable skills and devotion to quality.

Without the research grant support from EastTexas State University and the student labor avail-able to me, I could not have accomplished such avast amount of work. I owe a large debt of grati-

tude to E.T.S.U.’s Organized Research Programheaded by the colorful H.M. (Jim) Lafferty and toeach of my devoted assistants.

My work from this period carried a new refinedand formal quality with an image of mechanicaland a somewhat automotive body rhythm withinthe surface configurations. These relief forms redefined the compositions of my earlier land-scapes. The once “hard to soft” theory remained a catalyst and an organic dynamic of the landscape.

Its rhythms and contours still motivated theseunique designs. The fact that I once built a coupleof’ “hot rods” and still love the cars of the classic40s and 50s probably had a subconscious influ-ence on the so called “automobile” appearance.

Many other factors led to my interest in this newtechnique. I had to remedy the many technical headaches of the fiberglass process from fabrica-tion and painting dilemmas to health hazardsduring the construction and multiple layeredpainting phases.

The initial drawings for these formal structureshad a very spontaneous origin from the landscape,they would slowly be edited and modified to findthe common denominators of their suggestive,pure aesthetic design. Many of these workingsketches were also taken to a formal, finished,airbrushed drawing.

The Seventies

Throughout the 70s, numerous vacuum forms andairbrush drawings were produced, completed, ex-hibited and placed in numerous museums andcollections throughout the country. Among themwere Shaindy Fenton (Ft. Worth, TX), DonaldVogel (Valley House Gallery, Dallas, TX) and DaveHickey (A Clean, Well Lighted Place, Austin, TX)and Henry Hopkins (Ft. Worth, TX).

Mid 1970sIn the mid 70s, I was invited to Indiana Universityas a Visiting Artist. My wife, Shirley, and our twosons came along for the year of my contract. Wehad purchased a Siberian Husky puppy in 1962while at Cornell University and he loved playingin the snow again. My teaching job was minimalso I was able to work long hours in the studio. Ipushed my ideas away from vacuum formed plas-tic as a medium and began to pursue large hypo-thetical sheet steel sculptural floor and wall forms.They were to be environmental in size and ex-tremely provocative in a space age era. I createdover ten proposed macquettes while at Indianaand then began to totally reconsider my directionupon returning to east Texas.

While at Indiana University, fond memories andimportant friends and associations were formedwith artists Rudy Pozatti, Marvin Lowe, JamesMcGarrell, Richard Johnson, Gary LaRue, JohnMuer, Patty Whitty, Julius Tobias and Bob Barnes.I was invited to return to Indiana University in1980 and at that time I was moving aggressivelyinto another creative mode.

Late 1970sThe environmental proposals and macquettescompleted at Indiana University led to work oflarger interests in the late 70s which placed me in Conquista and Panna Maria, where projects insouth Texas – headed by the Conoco Oil Corpora-tion – invited me to address issues of reclamation.In mining for uranium, they found they had terri-bly large accumulations of overburden mounds. Ihad originally become interested in land reclama-

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tion in east Texas at the Winfield coal-mining siteon Hwy I-30 and the Fairfield site on Hwy I-45.After receiving a research grant in 1978 from EastTexas State University, I proceeded to connectwith the mining director, Dan Harper, at the Con-quista project near Karnes City, Texas and PannaMaria, Texas. Over a period of two years, I mademany drawings using topographic maps. Sitedrawings, legends and proposal layouts were documents, but also very creative. I received several awards for these drawings from the DallasMuseum of Art and the Arkansas Art Center.

The project that finally focused on a recreationand geology museum near Panna Maria was goingto become reality. However, within a month afterthe town of Panna Maria and Conoco Oil Com-pany had approved construction of this challeng-ing community project, the Three Mile Islandincident occurred and totally put the stroke ofdeath on our plans. Fears of uranium and nuclearcontamination were widespread.

By the end of the 70s, I felt I had exhausted mostof the ideas I wished to pursue with fiberglass andvacuum formed plastic as well as reclamation andenvironmental sculptural concepts. The decadehad been quite successful and I enjoyed being inthe forefront of an artistic/expressive mode ofwork. I had also wanted to do some studio work,which didn’t depend on so many political, corpo-rate and multiple individuals for resolution. I can only imagine how Cristo dealt with it all. Also another major change had taken place in my studio location.

In 1977-78 I moved my entire studio complex,supplies, hardware and inventory of work to anew studio I built in the country. It was a new experience not to have the energy and downtownnoise with which I was familiar. The peace andsolitude of the country brought about a newmindset and motivated strategy within my work.The rolling valleys of my farm were an influencein itself. Again I began looking at a new topogra-phy, more rugged, raw and real in its physical appearance. It offered both an abstract, and real, identity.

By this time I had been successful in many com-petitive shows, winning awards from such jurorsas Harold Joachim, curator at the Chicago Art Institute; Alfred Frankenstein, art critic/author;Martin Friedman, Walker Art Center; John Baur,Whitney Museum; Henry Hopkins, Fort WorthArt Center; Ebria Feinblatt, Los Angeles CountyArt Museum; Agnes Mongan, Fogg Art Museum;Ray Parker, artist, N.Y.C.; Brien O’Doherty, Na-tional Endowment for the Arts; Gudmund Vigtel,High Museum; Julian Levi, Art Students League;E1ke Solomon, Whitney Museum; Garo Antrea -sian, artist, New Mexico; Maurice Tuchman, LosAngeles County Museum; John Bullard, New Or-

leans Museum; Dorothy Miller, Museum of Mod-ern Art; Will Barnett, painter, New York; JanetKutner, art critic and author, Dallas; Susie Kalil, art critic, Houston; Jane Livingston, CorcoranGallery of Art, to name only a few of the highlyqualified jurors for these regional and nationalshows at that time.

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Catalogue No. 28Formation Series VI #4,1973Vacuum-form Plastic68 x 50 x 10 inches

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Right:Catalogue No. 29Delta VIII, 1984Acrylic and Sand on Canvas82 x 66 inches

Far Right:Catalogue No. 30Legend Series XXXIV(detail), 1985Mixed Media on Paper72 x 48 x 4 inches

The Eighties

Early 1980sThe break from the vacuum-formed period wasnot clean and instantaneous. It required experi-menting with some painting and drawing ideaswhich, though rewarding in many ways, wereonly transitions into what would become a decadeof new surface experiences and innovation withcast paper as the continual bas-relief medium.When the collaged surfaces of the paintings didn’tfulfill my expressive interests, I moved on to amore physical and sculptural bas-relief surface.

In this new direction, I wanted to eliminate thecomplexity and technical steps of the earlier vac-uum-formed period. However, to find artistic sat-isfaction, I found the spontaneity of clay providedthe kind of energy I wanted to find in my work. I had used this medium in the late 60s and early70s in preparation for the fiberglass work. Now it would be the initial surface preparation for castpaper, a medium I decided to use because of its multiple potentials with liquid colors andpaint/power pigments, etc.

The result was astonishingly rewarding as visualexpressions and unique statements of a new andintrinsic surface. I had always enjoyed studies ofthe river formations shaping the Mississippi, theColumbia and the Rio Grande. There were basins,alluvial fan formations and recreated boundaries,as well as cliff erosion patterns that were very mo-tivating. As challenging and exciting as the decadebefore had been, the 80s was a terrific period forme. With numerous invitations to have exhibitionsand workshops on the innovations in which I wasinvolved, I was beginning to enjoy and have a re-newed confidence in my studio endeavors. Numer-ous prizes were awarded to this new work and it wasacquired for many public and private collections.

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Mid 1980sDuring the mid 80s I was represented by over12 galleries; two in Chicago, two in California,one in Atlanta, three in Texas, two in New York,one in Philadelphia and one in Louisiana. Therewas widespread interest in the previous vacuumforms as well as the new cast paper and sand/gelpaintings on canvas; so much so that I was ableto take a leave of absence from my teaching position for several semesters and work withoutinterruption in my studio. I was also invited toreturn to Indiana University in 1980 as a visitingartist and found the short change of location fora semester to be refreshing and challenging tomy work. The early work originally began with a general informal rectangular format. Eventu-ally, in the mid 80s, after I modified the edgesto a radically uneven or shaped format, it beganto express a more figural and sometimes mythi-cal structure.

During this period I found support by many gal-leries such as Bill and Pam Campbell’s “GalleryOne,” soon to become William Campbell Con-temporary Art Gallery in Fort Worth, where Ireceived over eight solo exhibitions. Also the De-lahunty and June Mattingly Baker’s Gallery inDallas were very supportive through the era of“New Texas Art” that was being created, as wellas the Watson deNagy (Watson Gallery) inHouston from1973-83. Several other galleriesprovided income and solo exhibitions throughthis period such as Meriam Perlman, Chicago;The Ericson Gallery, New York; Mac GilliamGallery in Chicago; Barbara Gilman, Atlanta andMiami and Nimbus in Dallas.

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Catalogue No. 31Legend Series V, 1986Acrylic on Paper28 x 25 inches

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“When the collaged surfaces of the paintings

didn’t fulfill my expressive interests, I moved on

to a more physical and sculptural bas-relief sur-

face...cast paper, a medium I decided to use

because of its multiple potentials with liquid

colors and paint/power pigments, etc.”

Catalogue No. 32Legend XVIII, 1986Acrylic on Cast Paper30 x 26 inches

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Catalogue No. 33Legend XVI #3, 1985Acrylic on Cast Paper70 x 45 x 3 inches

Below:Catalogue No. 34Legend XXIII, 1986Acrylic on Cast Paper28 x 25 inches

Late 1980sIn the late 80s 1was invited to become “Artist inResidence” at the Baylor University Art Depart-ment. It was to be a permanent move and anemotional one.

I had taught at East Texas State University for 23years and with only several years away as a visit-ing artist, it had become a home – the only realhome my family and I had known. I had also cre-ated the most motivating studio environment anyartist could wish for. The farm I purchased in theearly 70s and where I built my studio was situ-ated on 55 acres, with a beautiful rolling land-scape, many trees, five ponds and original bluestem prairie grass. It was a location my wife,Shirley, and I, and our two sons had planned tobuild a new home. With the offer from Baylor, Iwas torn between holding on to what we had cre-ated in the small college town of Commerce. Wehad raised our sons there, had so many goodfriends and I had invested so much of my life intothe Foundations, B.F.A. and M.F.A programs of theart department. Contrasted to this, Baylor was alarger, growing university, and had a better sup-port system for its faculty, departmental budgets,research opportunities and sabbatical leave. Bay-lor’s Art Department Chair, John McClanahan,had new goals and an enthusiastic approach to-ward making the program a leading example in

the field of art. With over 20 years left in myteaching career, I felt I had to make the painfulstep toward this new opportunity. We kept thefarm for four years after the move and ouryoungest son, Kurt and his wife, Andrea, con-verted the studio into a lovely home. Therefore,we spent many enjoyable weekends there beforedeciding to sell the farm and say goodbye to abeautiful part of the past.

For the next 9 months as my plans progressed,the studio work progressed also, to a much moreprovocative visual form with interacting applica-tion of drawing, wood and metal parts. Because ofmy former interest in machinery, both in the dis-tant past and on the farm, the mechanical elementbecame the more dominant force in my work. Ap-pendages and metallic combinations began to sug-gest a mechanical complexity in the shaped relief.The linear energy I found in the mechanics of mydrawings and sculptural reliefs flashed back to thevacuum forms, and also the steel mills and petro-leum plants of the late 50s, when I was a studentat the University of Texas. The geological rhythmsand organic deposits that could be found in theearly paintings, fiberglass, vacuum forms and cast

paper works were replaced with the organic lineararrangements of the machine. There was a new in-trigue and it wasn’t in the sciences or topographicmeanderings of the earth. It was instead the influ-ence of industrial technology and the energeticraw beauty of the dynamic machine. The way Iexpressed my imaginative interpretations of thisnew visual phenomenon was with a frontal façadeof overlapping metal planes and appendages.Having worked on tractors and harvesting ma-chines on the farm, and still building custom andantique cars, I had inadvertently learned muchmore about mechanical operations than I hadknown in the past. There was a new mechanicalanatomy that had been brought to life for me.It was like a discovery of unique form – a newiconography and visual language. The colors wereof an aged surface origin with low, atonal quali-ties. They could be interwoven with the cranksand cams of the metallic anatomy. It was a newtechnical landscape with its own life. From thefirst phase of this new vocabulary, images werecombined with carved wood and metal cutoutsrepresenting a new physical façade. I was con-fronted with new territorial boundaries and Iwanted to explore it all.

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The Nineties

Early 1990sAfter several years of the icons of mechanization,my work psychologically began to move towardfigurative relationships, with a complex referencetoward angst, agony and human turmoil. Themechanized anatomy was replaced with realhuman anatomy, primarily in the form of skeletalstructures. I feel I was finding personal agendas,emotions and conviction through my work. Ibegan to create images of confrontational andtragic events of historical magnitude such as theIndian massacres, the holocaust and battlefields ofancient wars. Trips to North Dakota, New Mexico,Illinois, Germany, Italy and Poland, where manyatrocities had occurred, assisted in providing thesanctions and the incentive to create large draw-ings and shrines of these tragedies.

After several years, these assemblages and draw-ings for shrines encapsulated many emotions and a distant guild for humanity. Several galleries saidthat while they found the new work emotionallymoving and provocative, they would not be able toshow it, and dropped me from the stable of artists.However, many art centers, museums and univer-sity art galleries wanted to show the work instantly.It was a time of soul searching and cleansing.

The work had references to excavations, both fromprehistoric to present events. My former studies inarcheology and anthropology guided me towardmany of the early inquiries into the undergroundsecrets. These imaginative and expressive drawingsbegan to change to a more present time. Havingfelt emotionally obligated, as well as motivatedfrom a humanitarian/humanistic calling, theweight of the imagery and the demands of express-ing such emotionally charged psycho-dramas foralmost three years became very depressing.

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Far Left:Catalogue No. 35Nautical Burial, 1992Charcoal on Paper44 x 33 inches

Left:Catalogue No. 36Pleistocene Memorial,1990Fiberglass, Bone and Wood80 x 72 x 12 inches

Mid 1990sThe excesses of human energy and waste with allthat moves through our private, commercial andindustrial endeavors, offered untapped, expressivepotential for me. This work primarily took theform of drawings both large and small. Therewere also mental constructions which were anassemblage of forms representing waste sites withan interest in urban retrieval. They related to myearlier paintings and drawings of the landscape in that they provided the density of accumulatedparts and rhythm of the natural deposits, or shift,of these assembled forms. These assemblages alsoallowed me not just to represent the interesting relationships and mass of salvage, but also to resurrect the parts I could appropriate or fabricateinto an aesthetic and enticing interaction.

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Left:Catalogue No. 37Blocks and Casings, 1996Oil on Canvas70 x 50 inches

Right:Catalogue No. 38Heavy Metal II (detail),1993Pastel on Paper30 x 40 inches

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“The excesses of human energy and waste with all

that moves through our private, commercial and

industrial endeavors, offered untapped, expressive

potential for me.”

Above:Catalogue No. 39Industrial Waste, 1994Pastel on Paper44 x 32 inches

Right:Catalogue No. 40Retrieval IV, 1995Acrylic, Metal and Compounds on Wood36 x 30 x 3 inches

These sites collect products of our civilizationwhich are not yet buried and are too current to be labeled archeological. However they present aprocess, not just because of their former transformedidentity, but because of the unusual relationshipswhich occur in the crushed, twisted and stackedarrangements. They motivated me to create a vari-ety of motifs of opposite realities thus producing a dialogue between my two and three dimensionalwork. I felt I could not produce the drawing phaseof the Salvage Series without paying homage to theresurrected relief assemblages. Therefore, I createddrawings that deal with the enormity and densityof industrial waste, while at the same time I fabri-cated some unique forms of this waste into resur-rected metallic reliefs.

With these assemblages also came other sculpturalwall reliefs including cross section cuts intomasses of copper, brass and aluminum, which Iassembled and had blocked or crushed at theprocessing plant. Combining these dense com-pressed patterns with other caged/boxed com-partments of metal fragments allowed the workto document the history and metallurgical sourcesof various industrial components. It was an intriguing period of creative study, something Ihad never imagined undertaking. The metallicand compressed reliefs had a unique appearance because of the painted patine over a galvanizedsurface, contrasting significantly with raw com-pressed and boxed ferrous metals.

As the assemblages progressed with contained andboxed elements, a transition began to occur to theformat of an industrial wall with special assign-ments with control panels, plumbing routs andbasically junctions of complex appendages and

personally fabricated machine parts, which I madeof wood and metal. These industrial façades oftenhad deep surfaces of only their history and decay.The works also began to generate color and lay-ered painting demands, which were welcomed by me since my background had originally been in painting.

The work from this period brought many rewardsin the form of awards, solo exhibitions, purchasesand new acquaintances. During this period, Igained several galleries back from the past. Onewas my wonderful gallery, “The Rosenfeld” inPhiladelphia, directed by Richard and Barbara,who in the late 80s and early 90s, were very instrumental in introducing my work to the artcenters and collectors of the area.

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Following Page:

Left:Catalogue No. 41North Highlands Wall, 1996Mixed Media36 x 40 inches

Right:Catalogue No. 42Study for Sleeping Giant,1996Charcoal on Paper30 x 30 inches

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Left:Catalogue No. 43Warehouse, 1995Ink on Paper28 x 20 inches

Below:Catalogue No. 44Blast Furnace, 1996Charcoal on Paper14 x 14 inches

Right:Catalogue No. 45Tyler Pipe Co., 1998Pastel on Paper34 x 30 inches

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The Two Thousands

199 6 – 2003In the period of the late 1990s and early 2000s, I addressed my attraction to walls of all forms –ancient, industrial, reconstruction – as well as thewalls of nature. As this adventure moved forward,building contours and valleys, gears, inductions,exhausts and ports into my surfaces, I began torealize I was no longer creating an environmentof salvage and corrosion, instead I was consciouslyrecreating forms of personal interest and icons tothe labors of mans inventions with machines.These icons were not just created to suit a three-dimensional thirst for form. Drawings of imagina-tive machines became just as motivating to inventand build as an illusion of three dimensionswithin the two dimensional surface. Also, theseicons were the beginning of a new direction thatover a four-year period, took me back to paintinga dimensional image on a flat canvas or woodsurface. They gave me a new identity to explore.

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Right:Catalogue No. 46Catalytic Junction (detail),2000Wood, Steel and Acrylic84 x 78 x 12 inches

Far Right:Catalogue No. 47Iron Wall (detail), 2000Wood, Steel, Acrylic48 x 40 x 12 inches

Upper Far Right:Catalogue No. 48Intake II, 2003Mixed Media on Wood52 x 48 inches

Lower Far Right:Catalogue No. 49Industrial Wall, 2005Mixed Media on Wood44 x 40 inches

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“As this adventure moved forward, I began to realize

I was no longer creating an environment of salvage

and corrosion.”

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The new surface of illusions was also beginning toreawaken an interest in the mechanical structuresfound in the formations of geology. Hence, thelandscape was reappearing as I remembered itback in the 60s, with oil or acrylic on canvas, thecast paper “Legends” of the 80s, and the sand andgel canvases of that same period.

2003 – 2006In 2003 I was invited to be a visiting artist in theRoswell Residency Program for one month. Studioand living quarters were provided and I was ableto finish several paintings and pastel drawings.This location in New Mexico provided the advan-tage that it allowed me to travel to the 4-cornersand make drawings in preparation for my studiowork in Roswell. For the next three years I wasproducing many paintings, all representing closeviews of the walls of nature including large wavepatterns from storms seen in the Gulf of Mexico.

Forty-five years of creative experience providednew mandates that I imposed on each work. I nolonger sought the same resolutions in the surface,brush strokes or overall density of the layered im-pasto. The surface now was not about the rustcoated machine parts. Instead, it was about theerosion of ancient walls of nature or architecture.

Catalogue No. 50River Wall (detail), 2003Acrylic on Canvas70 x 66 inches

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Right:Catalogue No. 51Canyon Wall, 2003Acrylic on Canvas80 x 60 inches

Below:Catalogue No. 52Canyon, 2005Acrylic on Canvas78 x 38 inches

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Left:Catalogue No. 53Glacial Melt, 2004Mixed Media on Paper78 x 40 inches

Right:Catalogue No. 54The Discovery, 2005Acrylic on Canvas54 x 50 inches

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Above:Catalogue No. 55Pier 57, 2005Mixed Media on Wood18 x 18 inches

Right:Catalogue No. 56Mission Window, 2006Mixed Media on Wood14 x 14 inches

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The Chelsea work allowed me to re-visit the wallseries in a new, more painterly style. I alwaysloved these old walls of the original Chelseawarehouse district and Pier 57. I spent severalsummers in New York and from my studio on

23rd street, I witnessed the destruction of thesehistoric warehouses. I decided to do these wallsas a monument to the old warehouses, artists andstudios that created the original Chelsea district.Capturing these walls in various states of decay,

the substructures provided a landscape of exposedpipe, mortar and brick. It became a vibrant surfaceallowing me to express the spontaneity and free-dom found in my ongoing landscape series.

Catalogue No. 57Chelsea Wall, 2006Mixed Media on Wood16 x 16 inches

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“I found the landscape becoming a viable option for this

expressive form of painting…brush strokes became

broad, heavy and sweeping across the canvas, giving

the image both the abstract surface from the speed in

which it was painted, yet a realistic appearance upon

closer observation.”

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Far Left:Catalogue No. 58Falls, 2006Acrylic on Canvas74 x 38 inches

Left:Catalogue No. 59Mountain Stream, 2005Acrylic on Board30 x 26 inches

Right:Catalogue No. 60Rapids, 2006Acrylic on Canvas74 x 38 inches

Far Right:Catalogue No. 61Rush, 2006Acrylic on Canvas74 x 36 inches

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After numerous studies and major paintings, I began studying the science and physics of these forms in the earth and water. After severalmonths, I began cross referencing the scientificresearch with the created image and was oncourse with the challenge of my life.

Catalogue No. 62At the Mammoth Site, 2006Mixed Media on Paper50 x 40 inches

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2007In 2007, I began looking into ways of extendingthis information in my paintings. I made a fewsmall studies using black cardboard and smallpaintings on board. The suggestive nature of thisformat with several images placed at various rela-tionships with the black being used as shaped dividers was quite inviting.

Catalogue No. 63Cross Reference II, 2007Mixed Media on Canvas andInk on Vinyl70 x 75 x 3 inches

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I began working on the “Cross Reference Series”and I’ve enjoyed this endeavor immensely becauseI can use my creative interest in geology and sci-entific digital imaging as they relate to same sitelocations with contrasting flat to heavy texturedsurfaces. “Dualities” offer fresh points of view,initiating questions, intriguing observations andadding to the information and depth in my cre-ative works.

Right:Catalogue No. 64Fault Zone, 2008Mixed Media on Canvas and Ink on Vinyl60 x 60 x 4 inches

Below:Catalogue No. 65Cross References I, 2007Mixed Media on Wood62 x 154 x 4 inches

2007 – PresentOne of the major steps that occurred was when I visited the geology department at Baylor University and had an opportunity to discuss mynew direction and ideas with one of the geophysi-cists, Shane Prochnow. He conducts research all over the country and had made some major seismographic investigations in the areas I hadstudied in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. Shanewas very generous and provided material from hisresearch studies that could relate to my cliff forms on canvas and wood. Substrata digital images gen-erated from seismographic echo patterns provideda scientific, yet amazing, visual image that pro-vided a dynamic duality.

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Far Left:Catalogue No. 66Mudslide on the WesternSlope, 2008Mixed Media on Canvas and Ink on Vinyl

Above:Catalogue No. 67Industrial Wall, 2007Mixed Media80 x 48 x 4 inches

Center:Catalogue No. 68Mission Wall I, 2008Mixed Media on Wood and Ink on Vinyl61 x 40 x 4 inches

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Right:Catalogue No. 69Pleistocene Memorial,2008Mixed Media on Vinyl64 x 44 inches

Far Right:Catalogue No. 70Door of the Blast Furnace,2008Mixed Media on Wood and Ink on Vinyl41 x 56 inches

65

66

B O R N

1 9 3 9 Chicago, Illinois

E D U C AT I O N

M.F.A., Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1963

B.F.A., University of Texas, Austin, TX, 1961

Summer School of Music and Art, Yale University, Norfolk, CT, 1960

T E A C H I N G E X P E R I E N C E

Artist-in-Residence, Baylor University, Waco, TX, 1989-Present

Artist-in-Residence, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, Spring 1980 and 1974-75

Professor of Art, East Texas State University, Commerce, TX, 1967-89

Assistant Professor of Art, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA, 1966-67

Instructor of Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 1963-66

S E L E C T E D M U S E U M A N D P U B L I C C O L L E C T I O N S

American Airlines, DFW Airport, TX

Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR

Barnwell Art Center, Shreveport, LA

Bradley University, Peoria, IL

Buford Television Corporation, Dallas, TX

City of Waco, TX

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, TX

El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, TX

Eppink Memorial Art Gallery, Emporia State University, Emporia, KS

Evansville Museum of Art and Science, Evansville, IN

Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY

Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA

Goldermann, Inc., Chicago, IL

GTE Corporation, Dallas, TX

Henderson State University, Arkadelphia, AR

Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Dallas, TX

IBM Corporation, Austin, TX

Indiana University Foundation, Bloomington, IN

Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE

Longview Art Museum, Longview, TX

Martin Museum of Art, Baylor University, Waco, TX

Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, LA

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY

Modem Museum of Art, New York City, NY

Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, TX

New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA

Oklahoma City Art Museum, Oklahoma City, OK

Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA

Prudential Insurance Company, Boston, MA

Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM

Silvermine Guild of Artists, New Canaan, CT

Southland Corporation, Dallas, TX

State University at Pottsdam, Pottsdam, NY

Texas A&M University, Commerce, TX

Tulsa City Art Center, Tulsa, OK

Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, TX

University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, TX

University of Texas, Austin, TX

University of Texas, Permian Basin

U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, CO

Wichita Falls Museum of Art, Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, TX

S E L E C T E D AWA R D S A N D H O N O R S

2 0 0 8 2nd place cash award, Texas Art Celebration, Houston, Texas

2 0 0 7 Awarded a Faculty Research leave for the spring of 2008

Awarded an Allbritton Grant for Creative Research

Invited to be juror for the Annual Student Exhibition, Houston Baptist University

Awarded a Baylor University Faculty Development Grant

2 0 0 6 Recommended for Purchase, 22nd Annual Exhibition, Meadows Gallery, University of Texas, Tyler, TX

67

Selected Bibliography

68

Allbritton Grant from Allbritton Institute, Baylor University,Waco, TX

University Research Grant for Creative Leave Summer Sabbaticalfor Research, Baylor University, Waco, TX

Awarded commission from Midwestern State University to create a large painting for the new Dillard building on campusplus four vacuum formed reliefs

2 0 0 5 Invited to be Juror and Curator for the 38th Visual Arts Exhibition, Denton, TX

Allbritton Art Institute Scholarship Grant

The Provost Award and Purchase Prize, 30th Bradley International, Bradley University, Peoria, IL

Faculty Development Award for Research, Baylor University,Waco, TX

Nominated for the Cornelia Marshall Smith Professor of the Year Award

2 0 0 4 Cash Award and Honorable Mention, Texas Art Celebration, The Williams Tower Center, Houston, TX

Awarded Full Sabbatical, Allbritton Art Institute Grant

Invited to be a visiting artist for the Wilderness Studio Program, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK

2 0 0 3 Centennial Professorship Award

Baylor University Research Grant

Guest Artist, Roswell Residence Program for Artists, Roswell, NM

2 0 0 2 Honorable Mention, Visions International Competition, Art Center Waco, Waco, TX

University Research Grant, Allbritton Art Institute Grant forFaculty Research

Karl Umlauf: The Journey, a two-hundred-six page illustratedhardbound book published on personal career, in conjunctionwith Retrospective Exhibition, Martin Museum of Art and ArtCenter, Waco, TX

Bas Relief Sculpture Lecture/Workshop, Art Department, Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, TX

2 0 0 1 Presidents Award Purchase Prize, 28th Bradley National Printand Drawing Exhibition, Bradley University, Peoria, IL

1 9 9 9 Recommended for Purchase, Americas 2000,Northwest ArtCenter, Minot State University, Minot, ND

Purchase Prize, 25th Print, Drawing & Photography Competitive Exhibition, Arkansas Art Center, AR

1 9 9 8 Big XII Faculty Fellowship, Baylor University, Waco, TX

Faculty Research Grant, Baylor University, Waco, TX

Cash Award, The Assemblage Art Awards 1998, Dallas Public Library, Dallas, TX

1 9 9 7 Merit Award, 23rd Dakotas International Works on Paper Competition, University of South Dakota, SD

Who’s Who in America

1 9 9 6 Faculty Research Grant, Baylor University, Waco, TX, Spring-Summer 1996

1 9 9 5 Full Sabbatical, Baylor University, Waco, TX, Spring-Summer1996

Purchase Prize, 23rd Annual Drawing, Print and PhotographyExhibition, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR

Outstanding Creative Artist, Baylor University, Waco, TX

1 9 9 4 Who’s Who Among American Teachers (nominated by students)

Cash Award, Texas Sculpture Association Exhibition, Plaza of the Americas, Dallas, TX

Honorable Mention, Works on Paper 35th Invitational Competition, Longview,TX

1 9 9 3 Merit Award, 24th National Print and Drawing Exhibit, Bradley University, Peoria, IL

First Prize and Solo Exhibit, 49th Annual Competition, Museum of Abilene, Abilene, TX

Artist Fellowship, Virginia Center for the Arts, Sweetbriar, VA

1 9 9 2 Artist’s Grant, Bolton Foundation, Waco, TX

Artist’s Grant, Horsfull Foundation,Waco, TX

1 9 9 1 Third Prize, Texas Arts Celebration ’91, Cullen Center, Houston, TX

1 9 8 9 University Candidate for the National Case Teaching Award,Washington, DC, (nominated by ETSU)

1 9 8 8 University Candidate for the National Case Teaching Award,Washington, DC, (nominated by ETSU)

1 9 8 7 University Candidate for the National Case Teaching Award,Washington, DC, (nominated by ETSU)

Second Prize and Solo Exhibition, 28th Annual Invitational,Longview, Museum, Longview, TX

1 9 8 6 Grand Prize, Texas Arts Celebration ’86, Houston Center, Houston, TX

69

1 9 8 5 Exceptional Merit Award, Amarillo Competition ’85, AmarilloArt Center, Amarillo, TX

1 9 7 9 Purchase Award, 22nd Delta National, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR

1 9 7 7 Purchase Award and Solo Exhibition, 19th Invitational,Longview Museum, Longview, TX

1 9 7 5 Grand Prize and Purchase, Mid-States Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition, Evansville, IN

1 9 7 4 Purchase Award, 20th Drawing and Sculpture Exhibition, Ball State University, Muncie, IN

First Prize and Purchase, 13th Midwest Biennial, Joslyn Museum, Omaha, NE

1 9 7 3 Purchase Award and One-Man Exhibition, ’73 Artist Biennial, New Orleans Museum, New Orleans, LA

Purchase Award, 15th Annual Eight-State Exhibition, Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, OK

Purchase Award, 51st Regional Art Exhibition, Barnwell Art Center, Shreveport, LA

1 9 7 1 Dallas Art League Award, Texas Painting and Sculpture Exhibition, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX

Purchase Prize, 14th Delta Exhibition, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR

Purchase Award, 21st International Exhibition, Beaumont Art Museum, Beaumont, TX

Purchase Award, 19th Exhibition of Southwest Prints and Drawings, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX

Purchase Award, Pottsdam National Print and Drawing Exhibition, State University, Pottsdam, NY

Purchase Award, 17th Annual Sun Carnival Exhibition, El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, TX

1 9 7 0 Museum Purchase Prize, 7th Annual Exhibition, Masur Museum. Monroe, LA

First Prize, 12th Annual Eight-State Exhibition, Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, OK

1 9 6 7 First Prize, 45th Regional Juried Exhibition, Art Center, Shreveport,LA

1 9 6 3 Purchase Prize, Juried Arts National Exhibition, Tyler Art Museum, Tyler, TX

1 9 6 2 Dietz Award, 10th Regional Exhibition, Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY

Purchase Prize, 10th Regional Exhibition, Everson Museum,Syracuse, NY

S E L E C T E D S O L O E X H I B I T I O N S

2 0 0 8 Wichita Falls Museum of Art, Wichita Falls, Texas

Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, Texas

2 0 0 7 Retrospective Exhibition, Alden B. Dow Museum, Midland, MI

2 0 0 6 Harris Gallery, Houston, Texas “Landscapes” Retrospective Exhibition, Texas Christian University

2 0 0 5 Martin Museum of Art, Baylor University, Waco, Texas

Cline Fine Art Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ

2 0 0 4 Center for Spirituality & The Arts, San Antonio, Texas

2 0 0 3 Longview Museum of Fine Arts, Longview, TX

Cline Fine Art Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ

Cline Fine Art Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Irving Art Center, Irving, TX

Texas A&M at Commerce, Commerce, TX

Roswell Residency Center for the Arts, Roswell, NM

2 0 0 2 Martin Museum of Art, Baylor University, Waco, TX

University Art Gallery, Baylor University, Waco, TX

Art Center, Waco, TX

Cultural Art Center, Temple, TX

2 0 0 0 Harris Gallery, Houston, TX

1 9 9 8 Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK

Harris Gallery, Houston, TX

1 9 9 7 Martin Museum of Art, Baylor University, Waco, TX

University of Arkansas, Little Rock, AR

1 9 9 6 Tarrant County Junior College, Fort Worth, TX

William Campbell Contemporary Art Gallery, Fort Worth, TX

1 9 9 5 University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, TX

1 9 9 4 Museums of Abilene, Abilene, TX

Eppink Memorial Art Gallery, Emporia State University, Emporia, KS

1 9 9 3 Waco Art Center, Waco, TX

Dallas Visual Art Center, Dallas, TX

1 9 9 2 University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX

Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, TX

Longview Museum, Longview, TX

William Campbell Contemporary Art Gallery, Fort Worth, TX

1 9 9 0 Lamar University, Dishman Gallery, Beaumont, TX

1 9 8 9 Dome Gallery, New York City, NY

William Campbell Contemporary Art Gallery, Fort Worth, TX

1 9 8 8 University of Dallas, Irving, TX

1 9 8 7 Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

1 9 8 6 William Campbell Contemporary Art Gallery, Fort Worth, TX

University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

1 9 8 3 Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, TX

Watson deNagy and Company, Houston, TX

1 9 8 3 William Campbell Contemporary Art Gallery, Fort Worth, TX

1 9 8 0 William Campbell Contemporary Art Gallery, Fort Worth, TX

1 9 7 9 El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, TX

1 9 7 6 Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, AL

1 9 7 5 Joslyn Museum of Art, Omaha, NE

McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX

Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis, TN

1 9 7 4 New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA

1 9 7 4 Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN

1 9 6 9 Montgomery College Art Center, Rockville, MD

1 9 6 2 Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY

V I S I T I N G A R T I S T, L E C T U R E S , W O R K S H O P S , E T C .

Amarillo Art Center, Amarillo, TX

Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

Austin College, Sherman, TX

Ball State University, Muncie, IN

Dallas Art Center, Dallas, TX

El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, TX

Emporia State University, Emporia, KS

Galveston Art Center, Galveston, TX

Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE

Kilgore College, Kilgore, TX

Lamar University, Beaumont, TX

Longview Museum of Art, Longview, TX

Midwestern University, Wichita Falls, TX

Modem Museum, Fort Worth, TX

Northeast Missouri State University, Kirksville, MO

Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK

Southern Colorado College, Pueblo, CO

Southwest Texas State University, San Marcos, TX

Texas Association of Schools of Art, Dallas, TX

Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX

University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA

University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX

University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX

University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, TX

University of the Mainlands, Texas City, TX

Waco Art Center, Waco, TX

Kimbell Art Museum, Artist Eye Series, Fort Worth, TX

Oklahoma State University, OK

Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, CO

University of Arkansas, Little Rock, AR

Henderson State University, Arkadelphia, AR

Juror, Small Works on Paper, Arkansas Art Council, Little Rock, AR

Juror, Regional Open Exhibition, PIano Municipal Center, PIano, TX

Juror, 1998 Oklahoma State University Student Art Exhibition,Stillwater, OK

Juror, 14th Annual National Works on Paper, Meadows Gallery,Cowan Fine & Performing Arts Center, University of Texas atTyler, Tyler, TX

Mono Print Workshop, Midwestern University, Wichita Falls, TX

Drawing Workshop, Paris Junior College, Paris, TX

Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum, Austin, TX

Visual Lecture/Presentation, Texas Visual Arts Association, University of Texas, Dallas, TX

Personal Career Lecture in conjunction with Retrospective Exhibition, Martin Museum of Art and Art Center, Waco, TX

70

Scholars Day Lecture: Motivating Resources for the CreativeProcess,Baylor University, Waco, TX

Lecture, Irving Art Center, Irving, TX

Lecture, Texas A&M at Commerce, Commerce,TX

Lecture, Anderson Museum of Art, Roswell, NM

Juror, Sixth Annual Regional Juried Stars of Texas Art Exhibition, Depot Civic and Cultural Center, Brownwood, TX

Texas Sculpture Symposium, Texas Tech University, Junction, Texas

Visiting Artist for Wilderness Studio Program,OSU-StillwaterTexas Christian University Art Department, lecture and critiquegraduate students

Juror, 38th National Art Exhibition, Visual Arts Society of Texas,Denton, Texas

Juror for student exhibition, Houston Baptist University

S E L E C T E D G R O U P E X H I B I T I O N S

2 0 0 8 Texas Art Celebration Annual, Williams Tower, Houston, TX

2 0 0 7 22nd Annual International Exhibition, Meadows Gallery, University of Texas, Tyler, TX

31st Bradley International Drawing & Print Exhibition, Peoria, IL

District Fine Arts Gallery, Washington, D.C.

Houston Baptist University Selects Texas Artists, Houston, TX

2 0 0 6 Northwest Art Center International Americas Exhibition, Minot, ND

Protege Invitational, Temple Art Center, Temple, Texas

Texas Art Celebration, Williams Tower Exhibition Center, Houston, TX

Multimedia Winter Exhibition, Art Center Waco, Waco, TX

2 0 0 5 Space Invaders Invitational, University of Texas at Dallas &Binder Gallery, Marfa, TX

30th Bradley International Exhibition, Bradley University, Peoria, IL

Protege Exhibition, Art Center, Temple, TX

Holiday Icons, Art Center, Temple, TX

Salvage V, exhibited in the new Performing Art Center, Lorena, TX

Critics Choice Exhibition, Dallas Center for Contemporary Art,Dallas, TX

Invited to show in the Space-Invaders Exhibition, UT-Dallas, and the Eugene Binder Gallery in Marfa, TX

71

2 0 0 4 Texas Art Celebration, The Williams Tower Exhibition Center,Houston, TX

Drawing Exhibition, Howard Gallery, University of Nebraska,Lincoln, NE

2 0 0 3 Protege Exhibition, Cultural Activities Center, Temple, TX

2 0 0 2 Visions International Competition, Art Center, Waco, TX

The 2002 Protege Exhibition, Cultural Arts Center, Temple, TX

Project Phoenix, Red Bud Gallery, Houston, TX

2 0 0 1 28th Bradley National Print and Drawing Exhibition, LakeviewMuseum, Bradley University, Peoria, IL

16th Annual National Works on Paper, Meadows Gallery, The University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, TX

Art View 2001, Waco Art Center, Waco, TX

Teacher/Protege 2001, Cultural Activities Center, Temple, TX

The Mac’s 2001 3rd Biennial Juried Exhibition, Dallas, TX

Invitational Drawing Exhibition, McNeese State College, McNeese, LA

2 0 0 0 Teacher/Protege 2000, Cultural Activities Center, Temple, TX

43rd Annual Delta Exhibition, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR

Sculptural Syncretism (Four Texas Artists), Collin County Community College Art Gallery, Allen, TX

William Campbell Contemporary Art 25th Anniversary Exhibition, Fort Worth, TX

26th Annual Delta Exhibition, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR

1 9 9 9 25th Print, Drawing & Photography Competitive Exhibition,Arkansas Art Center, AR

Oil Patch Dreams – Circuit Exhibition, Art Museum of SoutheastTexas, Beaumont, TX

Museum Southwest, Midland, TX

The El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, TX

Austin Museum of Art, Austin, TX

Wichita Falls Museum and Art Center, Wichita Falls, TX

Texas National, Meadows Gallery, Stephen F. Austin University,Nacogdoches, TX

Texas Art 2000, Assistant League of Houston, Barbara DavisGallery, Houston, TX

1 9 9 8 Dallas Area Artists, Lowell Collins Gallery, Houston, TX

The Assemblage Art Awards Exhibition 1998, Dallas Public Library, Dallas, TX

Critic’s Choice, Dallas Visual Art Center, Dallas, TX

1 9 9 7 23rd Dakotas International Works on Paper Competition, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD

Texas Reflections,Waco Art Center, Waco, TX

Central Texas Artists Invitational, Waco Art Center, Waco, TX

1 9 9 5 William Campbell Contemporary Art Gallery, Fort Worth, TX

Harris Gallery, Houston, TX

Editions Limited, San Francisco, CA

Archa Art Center, Prague, Czech Republic

72

Mark Makers Drawing Exhibition, Frogmans Press and Gallery,Beresford, SD

59th Annual National Exhibition of Contemporary AmericanPaintings, Four Arts Plaza, Palm Beach, FL

1 9 9 4 Dakota International, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD

18th Annual Invitational, Emporia State University, Emporia, KS

1 9 9 3 35th North Dakota National Print and Drawing Exhibition,North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND

49th Annual Competition, Museums of Abilene, Abilene, TX

1 9 9 1 Amarillo Competition 1991, Amarillo Art Center, Amarillo, TX

Texas Art Celebration ’91 – Cullen Art Center, Houston, TX

1 9 9 0 Cars in Art The Automobile Icon, Pensacola Museum of Art,Pensacola, FL

33rd Annual Delta Art Exhibition, The Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR

1 9 8 9 Excellence 4th National Sculpture Exhibition, Plaza of the Americas, Dallas, TX

Cyrna International Art Gallery, World Trade Center, Chicago, IL

1 9 8 7 Abstract Painters, Richard Stockton State College, Pomona, NJ

Sculpture, Galerie Simonne Stem, New Orleans, LA

1 9 8 6 New Works in Cast Paper, Klonaridist, Inc., Toronto/Ontario,Canada

Texas Art Celebration, Houston Center, TX

24th National Sun Carnival Exhibition, El Paso Museum of Art,El Paso, TX

Grand Opening of Mac Gillman Gallery, Chicago, IL

1 9 8 5 Dimensional Paper Exhibition, San Antonio Art Institute, San Antonio,TX

Amarillo Competition ’85, Amarillo Art Center, Amarillo, TX

1 9 8 4 Ericson Gallery, New York City, NY

25th National Invitational, Longview Museum of Art, Longview, TX

1 9 8 3 26th Annual Delta Art Exhibition, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR

1 9 8 2 Watson-deNagy Gallery, Houston, TX

Artists’ Choice, William Crapo Gallery, Swain School of Design, New Bedford, MA

1 9 7 8 Works on Paper Southwest ’78, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX

1 9 7 7 Artist Biennial, New Orleans Museum, New Orleans, LA

1 9 7 5 27th Mid-States Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition,Evansville Museum, Evansville, IN

1 9 7 4 20th Annual Drawing and Sculpture Exhibition, Ball State University, Muncie, IN

13th Midwest Biennial Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture,Joslyn Museum, Omaha, NE

Mid-States Exhibition, Evansville Museum of Art, Evansville, IN

1 9 7 3 Annual Texas Fine Arts Association Exhibition, University ofTexas at Arlington, Arlington, TX

Artist Biennial Exhibition, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA

15th Annual Eight-State Invitational Painting and Sculpture Exhibition, Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, OK

1 9 7 2 9th National Print Exhibition, Silvermine Guild of Artists, New Canaan, CT

Pottsdam National Print and Drawing Exhibition, State University, Pottsdam, NY

18th Annual Drawing and Sculpture Exhibition, Ball State University, Muncie, IN

19th Southwestern Prints and Drawing Exhibition, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX

1 9 7 1 17th Annual Drawing and Sculpture Exhibition, Ball State University, Muncie, IN

Texas Painting and Sculpture Exhibition, Dallas Museum of Art,Dallas, TX

14th Annual Delta Exhibition, Arkansas Fine Arts Center, Little Rock, AR

1 9 7 0 The Drawing Society Regional Exhibition, Houston Museum ofFine Arts, Houston, TX

Twelfth Annual Eight-State Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture,Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City

1 9 6 9 14th Annual Sun Carnival Exhibition, El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, TX

11th Annual National Print and Drawing Exhibition, OklahomaArt Center, Oklahoma City, OK

1 9 6 8 Texas Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition, Dallas Museumof Art, Dallas, TX

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74

CatalogueChecklist Catalogue No. 1Cover, page 8 & 14Chili Factory, 1959Oil on Linen30 x 40 inches

Catalogue No. 2Page 15Owl, 1958Oil on Linen24 x 18 inches

Catalogue No. 3Page 8 & 16Dallas Rail Yard, 1958Oil on Linen26 x 20 inchesCollection of Bobbie & John Nau, Houston, Texas

Catalogue No. 4Page 17Pipe Fitters, 1959Oil on Linen30 x 24 inchesPrivate collection

Catalogue No. 5Page 17Refinery, 1959Oil on Linen22 x 28 inches

Catalogue No. 6Page 17City, 1959Oil on Linen40 x 50 inchesPrivate collection

Catalogue No. 7Page 18Tyler Refinery, 1959Oil on Linen20 x 26 inches

Catalogue No. 8Page 6 & 18Slag Pullers, 1959Oil on Linen34 x 42 inches

Catalogue No. 9Page 8 & 19Steel Mill, 1959Oil on Linen18 x 24 inches

Catalogue No. 10Page 20Morning Fog, 1960Oil on Linen36 x 46 inches

Catalogue No. 11Page 9 & 20Midnight Over WestTexas Plains, 1960Oil on Linen30 x 40 inchesCollection of Sam & Nan DealeyDallas, Texas

Catalogue No. 12Page 9 & 21Storm Clouds, 1960Oil on Canvas64 x 52 inches

Catalogue No. 13Page 22McNeil Lime Company, 1960Gouache on Paper14 x 8 inches

Catalogue No. 14Page 23Newell Salvage, 1960Oil on Linen36 x 46 inches

Catalogue No. 15Page 24Autumn, 1961Oil on Linen34 x 32 inches

Catalogue No. 16Page 25Evening Field, 1961Oil on Linen44 x 40 inches

Catalogue No. 17Page 26The Cave, 1962Oil on Canvas70 x 62 inches

Catalogue No. 18Page 26Incline, 1963Oil on Canvas68 x 62 inches

Catalogue No. 19Page 27Incline IV, 1966Ink on Paper32 x 18 inches

Catalogue No. 20Page 27Northern Rim, 1966Ink on Paper30 x 26 inches

Catalogue No. 21Page 27Cliff Face, 1967Ink on Paper30 x 24 inches

Catalogue No. 22Page 28Incline I, 1968Acrylic on Board10 x 14 inches

Catalogue No. 23Page 29Stream Bed, 1967Oil on Canvas44 x 32 inches

Catalogue No. 24Page 29Rapids, 1968Oil on Canvas78 x 62 inches

Catalogue No. 25Page 29River VIII, 1968Oil on Canvas60 x 44 inches

Catalogue No. 26Page 9 and 30Formation III #2, 1969Cast Fiberglass and Lacquer on Wood58 x 48 x 5 inches

Catalogue No. 27Page 31Formation XXXXIV, 1979Vacuum-form Plastic28 x 26 x 4 inches

Catalogue No. 28Page 33Formation Series VI #4, 1973Vacuum-form Plastic68 x 50 x 10 inches

Catalogue No. 29Page 34Delta VIII, 1984Acrylic and Sand on Canvas82 x 66 inches

Catalogue No. 30Page 35Legend Series XXXIV(detail), 1985Mixed Media on Paper72 x 48 x 4 inches

75

Catalogue No. 31Page 36Legend Series V, 1986Acrylic on Paper28 x 25 inches

Catalogue No. 32Page 10 & 37Legend XVIII, 1986Acrylic on Cast Paper30 x 26 inches

Catalogue No. 33Page 10 & 38Legend XVI #3, 1985Acrylic on Cast Paper70 x 45 x 3 inches

Catalogue No. 34Page 38Legend XXIII, 1986Acrylic on Cast Paper28 x 25 inches

Catalogue No. 35Page 40Nautical Burial, 1992Charcoal on Paper44 x 33 inches

Catalogue No. 36Page 10 & 41Pleistocene Memorial, 1990Fiberglass, Bone and Wood80 x 72 x 12 inches

Catalogue No. 37Page 42Blocks and Casings, 1996Oil on Canvas70 x 50 inches

Catalogue No. 38Page 11 & 43Heavy Metal II (detail), 1993Pastel on Paper30 x 40 inches

Catalogue No. 39Page 44Industrial Waste, 1994Pastel on Paper44 x 32 inches

Catalogue No. 40Page 11 & 44Retrieval IV, 1995Acrylic, Metal and Compounds on Wood36 x 30 x 3 inches

Catalogue No. 41Page 46North Highlands Wall, 1996Mixed Media36 x 40 inches

Catalogue No. 42Page 47Study for Sleeping Giant, 1996Charcoal on paper30 x 30 inches

Catalogue No. 43Page 48Warehouse, 1995Ink on Paper28 x 20 inches

Catalogue No. 44Page 11 & 48Blast Furnace, 1996Charcoal on Paper14 x 14 inches

Catalogue No. 45Page 49Tyler Pipe Co., 1998Pastel on Paper34 x 30 inches

Catalogue No. 46Page 50Catalytic Junction (detail), 2000Wood, Steel and Acrylic84 x 78 x 12 inches

Catalogue No. 47Page 51Iron Wall (detail), 2000Wood, Steel, Acrylic48 x 40 x 12 inches

Catalogue No. 48Page 51Intake II, 2003Mixed Media on Wood52 x 48 inches

Catalogue No. 49Page 51Industrial Wall, 2005Mixed Media on Wood44 x 40 inches

Catalogue No. 50Page 52River Wall, 2003Acrylic on Canvas70 x 66 inches

Catalogue No. 51Page 53Canyon Wall, 2003Acrylic on Canvas80 x 60 inches

Catalogue No. 52Page 53Canyon, 2005Acrylic on Canvas78 x 38 inches

Catalogue No. 53Page 54Glacial Melt, 2004Mixed Media on Paper78 x 40 inches

Catalogue No. 54Page 55The Discovery, 2005Acrylic on Canvas54 x 50 inches

Catalogue No. 55Page 56Pier 57, 2005Mixed Media on Wood18 x 18 inches

Catalogue No. 56Page 56Mission Window, 2006Mixed Media on Wood14 x 14 inches

Catalogue No. 57Page 57Chelsea Wall, 2006Mixed Media on Wood16 x 16 inches

Catalogue No. 58Page 58Falls, 2006Acrylic on Canvas74 x 38 inches

Catalogue No. 59Page 58Mountain Stream, 2005Acrylic on Board30 x 26 inches

Catalogue No. 60Page 59Rapids, 2006Acrylic on Canvas74 x 38 inches

Catalogue No. 61Page 59Rush, 2006Acrylic on Canvas74 x 36 inches

Catalogue No. 62Page 60At the Mammoth Site, 2006Mixed Media on Paper50 x 40 inches

Catalogue No. 63Page 12 & 61Cross Reference II, 2007Mixed Media on Canvas and Ink on Vinyl70 x 75 x 3 inches

Catalogue No. 64Page 62Fault Zone, 2008Mixed Media on Canvas and Ink on Vinyl60 x 60 x 4 inches

Catalogue No. 65Page 62Cross References I, 2007Mixed Media on Wood62 x 154 x 4 inches

Catalogue No. 66Page 63Mudslide on the Western Slope, 2008Mixed Media on Canvas and Ink on Vinyl66 x 50 x 4 inches

Catalogue No. 67Page 63Industrial Wall, 2007Mixed Media80 x 48 x 4 inchesPrivate collection

Catalogue No. 68Page 63Mission Wall I, 2008Mixed Media on Wood and Ink on Vinyl61 x 40 x 4 inches

Catalogue No. 69Page 13 & 64Pleistocene Memorial, 2008Mixed Media on Vinyl64 x 44 inches

Catalogue No. 70Cover & page 65Door of the Blast Furnace, 2008Mixed Media on Wood and Ink on Vinyl41 x 56 inches

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Catalogue Credits

We would like to thank the following people, institutions and sponsors for their direction, support and considerable effort in making this national exhibition of Karl Umlauf’s works possible:

Armin Mersmann, Curator and Bruce Winslow, Director of the Aldon B.Dow Museum, Midland, Michigan. This large, nationally recognized Museum of Science and Art was a perfect venue to display Karl’s lifelong creative entrenchment with science and technology.

Cohn Drennan and the staff of the Wichita Falls Museum of Art at Mid- western State University for their excellent job of installing and curating the exhibition and his wife Cathy for designing a beautiful and informativebrochure. Cohn has exhibited his masterful direction in presenting not onlythe Umlauf retrospective but also Karl’s most recent series “Cross Reference.”

Kim Tomio, Director and Ken Tomio, Curator at the Tyler Museum of Art with their exhibition Father & Son III: Charles and Karl Umlauf – TwoGenerations of Texas Art Icons. The exhibition was beautifully presented and garnered national attention as well.

To Elaine Taylor, Gallery Manager of the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, for her dedication to the Arts Center and interest, in not only Karl’swork, but that of his father and students. Her commitment allowed us topresent for the first time Karl’s influences and those he has influenced.

To David Dike Estates, L.P. for their extensive sponsorship and contributionsto all the shows.

Again, we wish to thank Patricia Meadows, Curator of the Texas SculptureGarden and the Hall Collection, Frisco, Texas. Additionally, Vince Mariani ofthe University of Texas-Austin, who in the original book presented a specialinsight and mythical summation of the depth of the artist.

The catalogue and book supplement, Karl Umlauf – Natural Evolution, would not have been possible without the dedication and commitment of several exceptional people and firms: John Moore Walker Photography,whose special photographic vision is very much appreciated, Sondra Bradyand her tireless hours editing Karl’s images and Becky and Ken Phillips ofWinshipPhillips in Dallas, for their design and editorial direction that is evident in this remarkable catalogue.

Special recognition and gratitude should be paid to Katie Robinson Edwards, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Art History at Allbritton Art Institute, Baylor University, for her exceptional essay which brings to light all the important changes, progressions and dynamic factors from the past to the present in Karl’s work.

Special gratitude to Russell Tether for his efforts and diligent manner in assembling and curating this overwhelming presentation of Karl Umlauf’slife as an artist, and to gallery director, Leslie Humphrey, for taking care ofthe exhaustive details. Unprecedented steps are being made to move thisprovocative work to the forefront.

And to Karl and his wife Shirley, who deserve special recognition and gratitude for their endless efforts in supplying documention, visual materialand chronological information on all the art work.

Karl Umlauf – Natural Evolution

June 6 - June 28, 2008Fort Worth Community Arts CenterFort Worth, Texas 76107

An exhibition organized by Russell Tether & Leslie HumphreyGallery 2 David Dike Fine Art & Estates1229-B Slocum Street, Dallas, Texas 75207Telephone: 214-741-2789 Facsimile: 214-741-2786www.daviddikegallerytwo.com

Copyright © 2008 David Dike Estates L.P.(dba Gallery 2 David Dike Fine Art & Estates)First Edition of 2000 copiesISBN 978-1-60643-650-9

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,including photocopying, without the written permission of the publisher.

Photos of Karl Umlauf: John Moore Walker Photographyjmwalker3@mac.com

Photography: John Moore Walker, Jessica Cook, Chris Hanson, Kenneth Ransom, Larry Sengbush, Bob Smith and Stuart Umlauf

Catalogue Design: WinshipPhillips, www.winshipphillips.com

Cover Images (top to bottom): Chili Factory 1959 (detail), Door of the Blast Furnace 2008 (detail).