“Self-Portrait Leaning on a Stone Sill” by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1639; etching, with touches of drypoint, retouched in black chalk. Collection of Yale University Art Gallery. Transmitted light photograph courtesy of Theresa Fairbanks-Harris. Image courtesy of the Allen Memorial Art Museum.

Exhibitions exploring Rembrandt’s etchings and Japanese printmaking will mark the new year at Oberlin College’s Allen Memorial Art Museum

By Amanda Koehn

The new exhibit on the 17th century Dutch artist Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn’s etchings at Allen Memorial Art Museum was born out of curiosity about artwork that had once been safeguarded at the Oberlin College museum for larger Northeastern institutions during World War II due to fears bombing of a major city could destroy them.

While Rembrandt’s prints were among works held at the Allen Memorial Art Museum during the war, interest in those works in particular developed into an exploration of Rembrandt’s history as a printmaker, and then into the role the etchings have come to play at Oberlin and other academic institutions.

“Christ Healing the Sick (The Hundred Guilder Print)” by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1648; etching, engraving and drypoint on Japanese paper. Image courtesy of the Allen Memorial Art Museum.

“Christ Healing the Sick (The Hundred Guilder Print)” by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1648; etching, engraving and drypoint on Japanese paper. Image courtesy of the Allen Memorial Art Museum.

“I think (the etchings) reward close looking,” says Andaleeb Badiee Banta, the Allen Memorial Art Museum’s curator of European and American art. “That’s a big thing that academic museums have always promoted – to have students of any background come and really slow down and take their time and look closely.”

Banta joined Cornell University’s Andrew C. Weislogel, the Seymour R. Askin, Jr. ’47 Curator of Earlier European and American Art at the Ithaca, N.Y.-based school’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, in curating “Lines of Inquiry: Learning from Rembrandt’s Etchings,” which will be on view from Feb. 6 through May 13, 2018 in the Allen Memorial Art Museum’s Stern Gallery West.

The 60 etchings in the exhibit, some of which reside permanently at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, and others borrowed from other academic institutions, the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City and private collections, depict a variety of subject matter, including religious and historical scenes, portraits, landscapes and everyday life in Amsterdam during Rembrandt’s lifetime.

Etching is a printmaking method that uses chemicals to cut lines into a metal plate that holds ink to create an image. In one such piece included in the exhibit, “Christ Healing the Sick,” a crowd of people are shown standing and sitting around Jesus Christ, who has what appears to be a radiating light surrounding his head to draw attention to him. What’s striking about this image, however, is not Christ himself, but the detail in each surrounding person’s facial expressions and poses that illustrate where they may fit into society, their possible feelings and whether they are suffering. The printing process creates an image where some faces are more clearly etched out and finely detailed than others, giving the viewer many nuances to explore in a single work.

“St. Francis Beneath a Tree Praying” by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1657; drypoint and etching on oatmeal paper. Image courtesy of the Allen Memorial Art Museum.

“St. Francis Beneath a Tree Praying” by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1657; drypoint and etching on oatmeal paper. Image courtesy of the Allen Memorial Art Museum.

That piece was also referred to as the “Hundred Guilder Print” because that’s how much money it brought in during Rembrandt’s lifetime, which Banta says was an impressive amount.

Banta emphasizes the exhibit’s focus on high-quality impressions, as many prints can be made from the same plate. Rembrandt also would alter his plates so parts of an image would disappear and new facets would appear in various prints from the same original plate, which Banta says the exhibit will highlight.

Moreover, the exhibit is meant to demonstrate the many ways people can appreciate or investigate Rembrandt’s work, whether their interests involve understanding his historical period, analyzing his technique, wanting to see the concept of the branding in his pieces (papers were typically given a sort of proprietary watermark) or gleaning insight into his understanding of the human condition. Also, it reminds viewers that Rembrandt works aren’t only in major museums and have had a role in educating American students for more than a century.

“I’m hoping they will take away from it that really excellent Rembrandt prints aren’t only in major municipal museums, they are also in these often-small academic museums in unexpected places,” she says.

Japanese printmaking also highlighted

Oberlin received its first collection of Japanese prints as a donation from Cleveland educator Charles Olney when he died in 1904 – before the art museum, which is celebrating its centennial this year, even opened. Then, in 1950 it received a comprehensive collection of prints from the Japanese Edo period (1603-1868) from Mary A. Ainsworth, a graduate of the school and traveler to Japan in the early 1900s.

While Oberlin has used such works for educational purposes in the past, from Feb. 6 through May 27, the Allen Memorial Art Museum will host its first comprehensive exhibit to include prints from those collections – as well as many others in Oberlin’s possession that chronicle Japanese printmaking history from the late 1600s until the 1980s – that have never before been on display.

“It’s simultaneously a history of Japanese prints and the history of our collecting of Japanese prints through these very generous gifts over the past decades,” says Kevin R. E. Greenwood, the Joan L. Danforth curator of Asian art at the Allen Memorial Art Museum.

The 102-piece “A Century of Asian Art at Oberlin: Japanese Prints,” to be on view in the Allen Memorial Art Museum’s Ripin Gallery, will feature mostly color wood block prints but will also include etchings, mezzotints and a lithograph. It also includes works by some of the most well-known Japanese printmakers in history, Greenwood says, including Katsushika Hokusai, who created the famous “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” print, and Utagawa Hiroshige.

An 1856 Hiroshige color wood block print, “Fuji from Surugacho,” depicts people around a shopping district in Edo, which today is Tokyo, with a strikingly large and seemingly omnipresent Mount Fuji overlooking it. The symmetry, scale and bold color scheme makes viewers feel as though they are being invited into that world.

Greenwood says that particular print used chemical dyes that were newly imported from Europe that changed the game for Japanese printmakers in terms of their ability create works that were less sensitive to light and moisture. Also, it depicts ordinary people, or the merchant class, with whom the printmaking medium arose in Japan.

During that period, merchants often had wealth, but there were restrictions on where they could spend it – only those of the samurai class were allowed to have luxuries like silk and gold. Thus, merchants found new ways to spend money.

“They ended up spending it in entertainment, in restaurants, in theater – and that was the world that gave rise to prints,” Greenwood says. “So, it came out of the world of regular people.”

Generally, however, the exhibit aims to immerse museum guests in that world and into the craftsmanship of Japanese artists through several centuries in a way the Allen Memorial Art Museum has not yet chronicled.

“I hope (visitors) will take away from this exhibit a sense of the incredible creativity, the amazing craftsmanship and just this phenomenal, really uniquely Japanese industry that has survived for hundreds of years and continues down to the present day,” Greenwood says. CV

On view

Allen Memorial Art Museum

An opening reception for “Lines of Inquiry: Learning from Rembrandt’s Etchings” and “A Century of Asian Art at Oberlin: Japanese Prints” will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Feb. 8 at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, 87 N. Main St., Oberlin. “Lines of Inquiry” will remain on view through May 13 and “Japanese Prints” through May 27. For updates about related programming, visit oberlin.edu/amam.


Lead image: “Self-Portrait Leaning on a Stone Sill” by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1639; etching, with touches of drypoint, retouched in black chalk. Collection of Yale University Art Gallery. Transmitted light photograph courtesy of Theresa Fairbanks-Harris. Image courtesy of the Allen Memorial Art Museum.

“Moving Up” by Sarah Kabot, part of “Constructions” at Gallery W. Photo by Michael C. Butz

Four institutions on Northeast Ohio’s western edge represent a wealth of artistic offerings

By Ed Carroll

From a world-class museum at a liberal arts college to a cutting-edge gallery at an outdoor shopping center, or from a thriving community arts hub on the shores of Lake Erie to an all-in-one community college arts center home to both visual and performance art, Northeast Ohio’s outer-ring West Side suburbs have something to satisfy artistic interests of all types.

Varied only slightly by geography, the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, Gallery W at Crocker Park in Westlake, BAYarts in Bay Village and Stocker Arts Center at Lorain County Community College in Elyria combine to make western Cuyahoga and eastern Lorain counties a well-respected hot spot for those in the immediate area and a must-experience destination for those who aren’t already familiar.

Oberlin’s art ‘gem’

At right, Andrea Gyorody, curator of modern and contemporary art, discusses “Wisteria,” one of two paintings in the Allen’s collection by French impressionist painter Claude Monet. Photo by Scott Shaw / Allen Memorial Art Museum

At right, Andrea Gyorody, curator of modern and contemporary art, discusses “Wisteria,” one of two paintings in the Allen’s collection by French impressionist painter Claude Monet. Photo by Scott Shaw / Allen Memorial Art Museum

The Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin celebrated its centennial anniversary June 12, and like most institutions that have stood for a century, it’s steeped in history.

The Allen Memorial Art Museum was founded by Elisabeth Severance Allen Prentiss and her husband, Dr. Dudley Allen, who wanted to build an art museum for Oberlin College. Allen passed away before construction began, hence it’s a memorial museum. Renowned architect Cass Gilbert designed the building.

Megan Harding, manager of publications, membership and media for the Allen Memorial Art Museum, says people in the area have grown up with the collection.

“It’s a resource people can come in and view for 10 to 15 minutes and look at one painting, or spend a couple hours and look at the entire collection,” she says.

The entire college is encouraged to use the museum as a resource, no matter the course material – be it an astronomy class measuring the quilt of the night sky or a mathematics class measuring the volume of an ancient Greek cup – because it likely has something to relate to it.

“We find that by combining (classes and the museum), students get a richer experience and an appreciation for the visual arts they might not otherwise have,” Harding says.

In addition, the Allen Memorial Art Museum showcases world-class works of art, which the public is free to enjoy.

“This is a very high-quality collection here,” Harding says. “These works are on par with what they have at the Cleveland Museum of Art. We have been ranked consistently for decades as one of the top five academic art museums in the country. People don’t know what they have here. It’s really a gem. It’s a wonderful place to visit.”

Uniquely positioned

Gallery W set up for The 37th Annual American Greetings Fine Art Show in 2016. Photo courtesy of American Greetings.

Gallery W set up for The 37th Annual American Greetings Fine Art Show in 2016. Photo courtesy of American Greetings.

Gallery W is relatively new to Northeast Ohio’s art scene. It opened in 2016 on the first floor of American Greetings’ Creative Studios in Westlake’s Crocker Park shopping center. Gallery W is spacious, featuring ceilings that are 13 feet high and about 23,000 linear square feet of wall space.

Linda Marshall, creative director at American Greetings and gallery manager at Gallery W, describes the gallery as a “gift to everyone” from the company.

“American Greetings wanted to recognize our creative roots as an organization,” she says. “They wanted to make this a statement and an important statement. They decided to make this first floor kind of an olive branch to the community for anyone who wants to come in publicly to visit American Greetings or any guest to come into our gallery or our lobby and just enjoy creativity and be inspired.”

Due to the large space, Gallery W often features established artists – frequently affiliated with Northeast Ohio – who are capable and confident enough to hold the space. Recent shows have featured Barry Underwood, Sarah Kabot, Joseph Minek, Jerry Birchfield, George Kozmon and Loren Naji.

Megan Baucco, associate manager of marketing communications at American Greetings, says Gallery W is fortunate to be part of a larger corporation. As a result, it doesn’t need to sell art to survive, meaning it can take creative risks on the art it features.

“We try to humbly say we’re unique over here, and if we’re being technical about it, there’s nothing else like us,” she says. “We’re really fortunate that there’s no bottom line in Gallery W because that gives us a unique opportunity to show pieces others might not want to because they’re not for sale. If you think we’re just another art gallery to stop by and check out, then you need to come back a few more times and see how very different we are.”

Community appeal

Artists from across the country visited BAYarts in September 2016 when it hosted the Ohio Plein Air Society’s Annual Competition. Photo courtesy of BAYarts.

Artists from across the country visited BAYarts in September 2016 when it hosted the Ohio Plein Air Society’s Annual Competition. Photo courtesy of BAYarts.

BAYarts was founded by area artists seeking community in 1948. Originally named Baycrafters, the nonprofit became BAYarts in 2006, and today, it primarily operates as an arts education facility.

However, BAYarts artistic director Karen Petkovic says the organization has evolved to be more of a professional gallery and hosts regular exhibitions. BAYarts has two galleries: the Diane Boldman Education Gallery, which largely showcases work by BAYarts faculty, staff and students, and the Sullivan Family Gallery, which hosts shows featuring professional artists. 

BAYarts’ base consists primarily of Bay Village, Westlake, North Olmsted and Avon Lake residents, but people from across Northeast Ohio visit the organization’s campus. When it comes to selecting artists to feature or finding curators for shows, Petkovic says she tries to reach past BAYarts’ base to infuse the galleries with artistic diversity, citing the “My Cuban Experience” and “Cuban Art Invitational” shows on view in July as recent examples.

“We always are trying to kind of shake it up a little bit,” she says.

BAYarts has thrived throughout the years, Petkovic says, in part due to its inviting atmosphere.

“It’s just a very welcoming place,” she says. “It has a huge history, and the fact that it’s in the (Cleveland) Metroparks – and the buildings are historic and interesting to the community – is part of it.

“We’ve worked really hard to have programming, shows, summer concerts and (other) things that really reach out to the community so that they can come out for an evening right in their own backyard and see a band or a professional gallery show and send their kids to classes. It kind of just does everything, bringing it together.”

Multidimensional offerings

Visitors take in a recent exhibition at the Beth K. Stocker Art Gallery at Lorain County Community College’s Stocker Arts Center. Photo courtesy of Stocker Arts Center.

Visitors take in a recent exhibition at the Beth K. Stocker Art Gallery at Lorain County Community College’s Stocker Arts Center. Photo courtesy of Stocker Arts Center.

The C. Paul Stocker Humanities and Fine Arts Center, commonly known as the Stocker Arts Center, was established in 1980 as part of Lorain County Community College in Elyria and serves as a multifunctional arts center not only for the college, but for the entire community, featuring two theaters, art education and a gallery, the Beth K. Stocker Art Gallery.

The Stocker Arts Center is open to the public and always free, for LCCC students and nonstudents alike, but those aren’t the sole reasons for its popularity.

Stocker Arts Center director Janet Herman Barlow suggests the center is so highly regarded because the college prioritizes supporting and cultivating it.

“I think the college has nurtured it throughout its history, for all 37 years it’s been here,” she says. “I think the college takes a lot of pride in what it can bring to the community and what it stands for.”

Stocker Arts Center presents theater, music and other fine arts, and its gallery showcases for both students and faculty.

“At least two of our shows every year are student exhibitions, strictly the work of students at Lorain County Community College,” she says. “Every other year, we do a faculty exhibition as well. This fall, we’ll open with the arts faculty fine arts exhibit. … It’s a sign that the college is deeply committed to fine arts – as well as to other kinds of academic programs.”

Herman Barlow says Stocker Arts Center is the “community’s arts center.”

“We’re the only place that really has it all in one,” she says. “We’re closer than you think and it’s worth making the trip.” CV

On View

Allen Memorial Art Museum

“Maidenform to Modernishm: The Bissett Collection” and “This is Your Art: The Legacy of Ellen Johnson” opened Aug. 15 at 87 North Main St., Oberlin.

BAYarts

“Equal: Jessica Pinsky” and “Teacher Tell Me a Story: The Mad Side of Wonderland” will be on view through Sept. 23 at 28795 Lake Road, Bay Village.

Gallery W

“The 38th Annual American Greetings Fine Art Show” will be on view from Sept. 15 to Oct. 27. An opening reception will be held from 5 to 9 p.m. Sept. 15 at 1 American Blvd., Westlake.

Stocker Arts Center

The “Art Faculty Fine Art Exhibit” will be on view from Aug. 28 to Sept. 22. An artists’ reception will be held from 3 to 7 p.m. Aug. 31 at 1005 N. Abbe Road, Elyria. “James Massena March: Retrospective” will be on view from Sept. 28 to Oct. 27, with an artist’s reception from 3 to 7 p.m. Sept. 28.


Steve Wagner / FireFish Festival

Steve Wagner / FireFish Festival

FireFish fun

The third annual FireFish Festival will again bring art, music, dance and fire performances to downtown Lorain – but this year, those events will span two instead of just one.

From 5 to 10 p.m. Oct. 6, the festival will feature regionally acclaimed music groups and art installations across Lorain’s abandoned storefronts.

From 2 to 11 p.m. Oct. 7, the party will continue with music, dance and theater performances, leading up to the grand finale, the FireFish Processional. There, the crowd will join dancers, fire jugglers, baton twirlers, stilt walkers and drummers as they make their way to the Black River landing for the lighting of ceremonial papier-mâché fish in a fire display.

The FireFish Festival was created by James Levin, who also co-founded IngenuityFest and founded
Cleveland World Festival.

For more, visit firefishfestival.com.


Lead image: “Moving Up” by Sarah Kabot, part of “Constructions” at Gallery W. Photo by Michael C. Butz