Landscapes through Time

The Hudson River School artists were the first Americans to attract major attention as landscape painters in the middle to late nineteenth century. Their mammoth scale works depicted the epic scope of the American wilderness that inspired a sense of awe at a time when much of the country was still being explored. Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt were some of the more prominent members of this group.

Day’s End, Michael Prunty

Landscape painting was one of the major subjects of fine arts curriculums in the early twentieth century, when Cleveland School artists William Sommer, Henry Keller, Frank Wilcox, William Grauer and Paul Travis were going to art school. Although the scale of the paintings may have grown smaller, the subject matter was still alive with the visions of an evolving world. With many of these artists working as art instructors, they had ample time to travel throughout America, Canada and Europe in search of subjects to inspire them. Sommer, Keller and Wilcox all spent time traveling in England, Spain, Germany and France, while the wilds of Africa influenced Paul Travis on his 1927-28 sabbatical.

Double Arch, Michael Nekic

Landscape subjects still find a place of honor in the work of contemporary artists in Cleveland, with an even greater variety of expression through traditional and newer digital media. Michael Prunty has worked in watercolor painting for decades, creating urban and rural settings infused with special lighting and atmosphere. Randall Tiedman painted to classical music to drive his expressive, often large-scale paintings, and conjured unique images of the Northeast Ohio Rust Belt. Three decades ago, Michael Nekic began photographing the places he traveled and utilized several new computer software programs to alter the images. The results range from colorful, subtle nuance to outrageously psychedelic.