Public Lecture on Bluemner art at Stetson March 13

Oscar Bluemner and Jerichow, Germany 

Bluemner lectureA lecture on the Oscar Bluemner art exhibition currently on display at Stetson University’s Hand Art Center, will be presented Wednesday, March 13, by Dr. Susanne Eules, exhibition curator, coordinator of Stetson University’s Hand Art Center and adjunct professor of German language and literature. The lecture, which is open to the public, free of charge, will be at 7 p.m., duPont-Ball Library, room 25L in the Instructional Media Center, accessed from the courtyard on the north side of the library. The library is located at 134 E. Minnesota Ave., on the DeLand campus. Stetson students may earn cultural credit. The Hand Art Center will be open following the lecture.

The lecture is based on a research trip during the summer of 2010 and will explore and re-itinerate Bluemner’s trips to Jerichow, Germany with photographic images. Bluemner had created more than 160 sketches done between 1888-91 and 1912, depicting sceneries in the towns of Jerichow, Tangermünde, Stendhal and the surrounding landscape. A closer look at his note-taking and sketches in various media and realizations illuminates Bluemner’s investigation of his footsteps in Jerichow and surroundings.

Today, Jerichow is a town of about 7,460 inhabitants located in the Jerichower Land district, and situated in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The most prominent feature of Jerichow is the fully restored, oldest brick church in Romanesque style in Northeast Germany. Before his emigration to America in the fall of 1892, Oscar Bluemner often visited the small town, to see his paternal grandparents and other relatives living in nearby villages. Some of the sketches also document the timely cornerstones of his journey to Europe in 1912 when he revisited relatives. Another aspect of the archival research provides new insight into his family history.

Eules’ professional background is rooted in the field of museum and contemporary art gallery work in Germany where she worked several years as director and curator, educator and researcher. She also conceptualized and realized the Rheinauen-Museum Rastatt, part of the German-French Museums Project of the European Union.

The Vera Bluemner Kouba Collection at Stetson University is considered the “crown jewel” of Stetson’s permanent art collection. Stetson’s collection of works by American modernist painter Oscar Bluemner (1867-1938) is a bequest from the artist’s daughter, Vera Bluemner Kouba (1903-1997), and includes over 1,000 pieces in varied media as well as important archival materials.

The Homer and Dolly Hand Art Center, located at 139 E. Michigan Ave., on the DeLand campus, was dedicated in 2009. It provides permanent archival storage space, facilities for scholarly study of the collection and a gallery for regular rotating exhibitions of the works Oscar Bluemner, as well as gallery space for art exhibits by Stetson faculty and students. The current Bluemner exhibit will run through April 29.

For further information about the public lecture, please contact Dr. Susanne Eules at (386) 822-7271, or by email: [email protected], or call the Hand Art Center at (386) 822-7270.