SANTA FE NO. 92 IN THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF RAILWAY ARTISTS NATIONAL EXHIBITION IN LAS VEGAS

Santa Fe No. 92, 15 x 10 inch ink and watercolor painting by George C. Clark    AVAILABLE

My painting of Santa Fe No. 92 in "warbonnet" paint at the Illinois Railway Museum is included in the national ASRA artists' exhibition in the Big Springs Gallery at the Springs Preserve in Las Vegas, Nevada, that will be on view from September 30, 2016 through January 8, 2017.  The gallery is open every day from 10:00am to 6:00pm.  The Springs Preserve is a 180 acre site that includes the Nevada State Museum, the Origen Museum (of Natural History), a Botanic Garden, hiking trails and other attractions.  There is an admission fee to enter the Preserve.

IN THE BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS OF VIRGINIA

Blackrock Summit, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, 14.5 x 10.5 ink and watercolor by George C, Clark   AVAILABLE

Here is the finished painting I was working on along the Appalachian Trail in Virginia in the previous post.

DRAWING ON THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL

On the Appalachian Trail                     photo by Patricia Clark

We are just back from a road trip to North Carolina and Virginia, and the places between there and Chicago.  Here I am drawing on the Appalachian Trail in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.  I only hiked the mile or so out and back to Blackrock Summit from the Blue Ridge Parkway.  I am doing an on-site ink drawing to which I will add watercolor in my home studio.  I'll post the ink and watercolor painting here when it is finished.

WALCHENSEE OR KOCHELSEE?

Walchensee Landscape, 51 x 61 cm watercolor and gouache by Lovis Corinth

Kochelsee in the Rain, 12 x 16 inch watercolor and gouache by George C. Clark    AVAILABLE

I was looking at pictures in my catalog from the big Lovis Corinth exhibition that appeared in museums in Munich, Berlin, Saint Louis and London in 1996-7 when I noticed something that hadn't registered with me on many earlier studies of that book.  On page 355 a watercolor landscape is reproduced that was signed by Corinth, inscribed "Walchensee," and dated August 1924.  However, I am almost certain that the lake depicted is not in fact the Walchensee but the nearby Kochelsee.   And the reason I know this is because I painted that same lake from almost the same point of view on a visit to Germany some years ago.

We had flown into Munich and rented a car to explore southern Germany.  We visited a couple of Mad King Ludwig's castles and then headed for what I considered Corinth Country.  Corinth has been a favorite painter of mine since I discovered his work in a wonderful big book edited by his widow that I found in the art books department of Kroch's and Brentano's while I was in art school in the 1960s.  That book cost $180.  There was no way I could afford to buy it, but I spent a lot of time looking at it in the store.  The man who ran the art department was very tolerant of poor art students.  I think he suspected that some day I would be an art book collector and a good customer.  Thank you, Henry.  In 1998 the U.S. Air Force Art Program flew me to Frankfurt to attend the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Air Lift and I found a new reprint edition of Charlotte Berend-Corinth's 1958 book Lovis Corinth that I bought.  

Toward the end of World War I Corinth started spending his summers in the alpine lakes region of southern Bavaria.  In 1919 he built a house in the village of Urfeld on the shore of the Walchensee and spent increasing amounts of time there each year until his death in 1925.  His "Walchensee" paintings proved very popular with collectors and he painted a lot of them, some from his own property overlooking the lake, and some from other vantage points in the area.  I based myself in the larger town of Rottach-Egern nearby and spent a full day poking around the places Corinth lived and worked.   I drove around the lakes and explored the little lakeside villages.   It was raining when I pulled off the road at a scenic overlook and painted the watercolor posted above.  I sat in the passenger seat of my rented Volkswagen Golf with my watercolor block on my lap and the paints on the open door of the glove compartment.  I had no idea at the time that my painting idol had painted almost the same view decades earlier, although on a sunny day.  

Why did he inscribe his painting Walchensee and not Kochelsee?  I figure he either forgot which exact body of water he had depicted when he was signing his work perhaps weeks later, or he was using Walchensee as a blanket description for all the locations he painted while living at his house on that lake.  That view overlooking Kochelsee is only about 3 kilometers from his house, after all.       

SAILING SCHOOL DOCK, WILMETTE HARBOR

Sailing School Dock, Wilmette Harbor, 16 x 12 inch watercolor by George C. Clark   SOLD

Wilmette is a suburb north of Chicago on Lake Michigan.

THE LAST TOMATO IN PAT'S GARDEN

The Last Tomato in Pat's Garden, 12 x 16 inch watercolor by George C. Clark    SOLD

Whenever I do a a "Traveler's Sketchbook" exhibition like the recent one at Beverly Arts Center I describe the subjects as "ranging from the artist's own Chicago backyard to the back roads of Europe."  Here is a painting from my back yard.  I painted it late in the season when the climbing beans had gone crazy and there was a single tomato still ripening.  I asked my wife to leave some of her tools out so that they could be in the picture.

ROOFTOPS OF CHESTER, ENGLAND

Rooftops of Eastgate, Chester, England, 9.5 x 12.5 ink and watercolor by George C. Clark   AVAILABLE

The ancient city of Chester, on the Welsh border, is the last stop for a subway train you can board in downtown Liverpool.  The ground floors of the old buildings lining Eastgate are full of modern shops and eateries, even a Disney Store.  I preferred to look up for this on-site drawing.

This is the last weekend to see Traveler's Sketchbook, my exhibition at Beverly Arts Center in Chicago.