Selections from Stetson’s Bluemner Collection to be featured at Vero Beach Museum of Art
Oscar Bluemner (1867-1938) is regarded as one of America’s most influential modernist painters, and Stetson University is proud to house a large collection of more than 1,000 pieces of his works that were donated by his daughter, Vera Bluemner Kouba.
For the uninitiated, Bluemner was a German-born painter who immigrated to the United States at the turn of the 20th century. Heavily inspired by European art forms at the time, Bluemner painted both urban and rural landscapes using bright colors and simplified, abstract structures to convey his ideas. As a result, art aficionados, enthusiasts and curious museum-goers from all over the world flock to Stetson University’s Hand Art Center to appreciate his works. In addition to housing such a giant collection, Stetson University has collaborated with numerous museums all over the country to arrange exhibitions featuring Bluemner’s creations, the most recent exhibit taking place at the Vero Beach (Florida) Museum of Art.
The exhibition at the Vero Beach Museum of Art features a selection from some of the highlights of Bluemner’s career as a painter, including works in a variety of media. “Our goal is to educate others about Bluemner and his works,” says Roberta Favis, curator of Stetson’s Vera Bluemner Kouba Collection. “But we understand that not everyone can come to DeLand to visit the Hand Art Center, so we do what we can and work with other art museums in order to achieve this goal.”
The exhibition will open on Jan. 18, and will remain available to the public until May 22. For more information, please visit the Vero Beach Museum of Art.
The next exhibition from the Vera Bluemner Kouba Collection, Bluemner’s “Germany,” will open at Stetson’s Hand Art Center Jan. 22, and run through May 21. (The artwork pictured on the front page of Stetson Today is Bluemner’s “Elberfeld — Village,” 1884, watercolor on paper, which will be part of that Bluemner exhibition at the Hand Art Center.)
The Hand Art Center (HAC), home to Stetson’s extensive Bluemner Collection, is located in Stetson University’s Palm Court, at 139 E. Michigan Ave., on Stetson’s DeLand campus. It is open free of charge Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m., and Saturdays noon-4 p.m. For more information, contact Tonya Curran, director of the HAC, at [email protected], or call (386) 822-7271. All art exhibitions are also posted on the university’s online calendar found on Stetson Today.
By Anna Chun
