Carl Gaertner: A Story of Earth and Steel

The Cleveland Artists Foundation

Lakewood, OH

216-227-9507

Carl Gaertner and the American Scene

Rolf Stoll, Carl Gaertner, oil, Carl F. Gaertner Collection

"Carl Gaertner and the American Scene," a retrospective of one of Cleveland's preeminent realist artists, will be on display at the Cleveland Artists Foundation's gallery at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood, Ohio. beginning April 7, 2000 through July 2, 2000.

left to right: Carl Gaertner, Harbor Lights, c. 1927, oil, 26 x 31 1/2 inches, Mike and Carol Sherwin Collection; Carl Gaertner, Flying Ponies, 1932, oil on canvas, 44 1/2 x 66 3/4 inches, Mike and Carol Sherwin Collection; Carl Gaertner, The Stone Crushers, c. 1935, oil, 31 x 35 inches, Hahn Loeser & Parks Collection; Carl Gaertner, Corner in the Flats, 1930s, oil, 31 x 35 inches, Cleveland Artists Foundation Collection

Gaertner was an important Cleveland artist who was just achieving national acclaim before his early death at the age of 54. His work, while extremely popular and well known at the time of his death, has become relatively obscure today.

CAF's exhibition and the accompanying 56-page color catalogue, with essays by curator Christine Fowler Shearer and the Cleveland Museum of Art' s associate curator of painting William Robinson, reposition Gaertner as a critical Cleveland artist. The exhibition's 50 paintings will testify to this artist's excellence.

left to right: Carl Gaertner, Eviction, 1947, oil, Joseph and Elsie Erdelac Collection; Carl Gaertner, The Hudson, 1949, gouache, 16 x 22 inches, Carl F. Gaertner Collection; Carl Gaertner, Early Shift, 1952, oil, 24 x 44 inches, Joseph and Elsie Erdelac Collection

Carl Gaertner was born in Cleveland in 1898 and remained there until his death in 1952. He studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art, which was then called the Cleveland School of Art, from 1920-1923 and taught there from 1925-1952.

Gaertner's subject matter varied, but certain themes recur in his work, including industrial subjects, with Cleveland as his model in the early part of his career. Other themes were Provincetown, West Virginia watercolors and oils, and Chagrin Valley paintings. After 1935, Gaertner bought a farm in Chagrin Valley and began his series of paintings of that subject.

Ed: On February 3, 2000 the CAF notified us of a change in the title of the exhibition to: "Carl Gaertner: A Story of Earth and Steel."

Rev. 2/4/00

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rev. 11/20/10

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