Show of the Art Collection of Richard Stacksteder

In the studio on the campus of

Baker-Hunt Art & Cultural Center
620 Greenup Street
Covington, Kentucky 41011

Tel: 859.431.0020
Email: info@bakerhunt.com

Lecture Sunday March 11th at 2 PM by Mary Ran of the

Ran Gallery
3668 Erie Ave
Cincinnati, Ohio
45208
USA
(513) 871-5604 Phone

Tom Lohre will have two of his works in the show

http://tomlohre.com, tom@tomlohre.com, 513-236-1704

http://www.tomlohre.com/resume.htm

Tom is a life long full time fine artist who paints portraits, commissions, landscapes, seascapes, cityscapes and outer space scenes. He also creates robotic artists and art machines.

Patriot Summer Home, watercolor on paper, 7" x 5", 1996

This work was done for Rick as a gift. Tom learned of the great times at the cabin and wanted to paint it. When Tom moved back to Cincinnati, his wife introduced him to Rick and they have had a special patron artist relationship ever since.

South Street Seaport, watercolor on paper, 7" x 5", 1994

http://www.tomlohre.com/seaport.htm

Text from the above page:

Tom volunteered on the Pioneer for 125 hours to gain information to complete this work. It started with a commission from his sister and brother-in-law to paint two large 40" x 30" works for their home. Tom decided to paint two water paintings, one of New York Harbor and another of Cincinnati Harbor. He was still living in his apartment on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village when he started so he started working on the layout of the New York painting. He would comb the library for books on the seaport. Day after day he would delve deeper and deeper into the books that were not shelved in the public collection. He would have all the various folios brought up from the stacks and page through them. Finally he found a image to start from. It was a view of the southern pier of the South Street Seaport taken from the tennis pier just south. Tom went down there and started taking images of the scene. In the photo there was the Pioneer, a 100 foot schooner and a Brigantine tied up on the end of the pier. He then composed small sketches. He bolstered the main photograph with many photographs of is own, ship plans and first hand experience on the schooner "Pioneer." He used Canaletto and Jan Van der Heyden's style to guide his brush manner. He wanted something free and easy but still detailed. He believed he could achieve this by working with premixed color applied wet on wet.
On this complicated piece he discovered a different approach for achieving success. His strategy was to paint a full size, rough painting using a slow drying oil applied with a palette knife. The thick color and vague form could be scraped off and reapplied until the desired image was created. This approach gave him the best form and color for the final work. For eighteen months, he learned about the South Street Seaport Museum. The painting depicts the early days of the museum. The iron schooner "Pioneer" in the foreground is part of the museum, regularly providing tours of New York Harbor. The Seaport Museum has a large volunteer operation and Tom volunteered for general duty on board the "Pioneer." In 1885 she was the finest vessel available for collecting foundry sand. She originally had one large mast for greater speed. The barkentine in the background is the all wood "Regina Maris," built in the 1800's and now berthed in Greenport, Long Island. Her design followed the clipper ships because she used a smaller crew and could sail closer to the wind. In painting, Tom started with a fixed pencil sketch on the canvas. Next, I painted the sky with slow drying oil because the buildings, bridges and rigging must be painted before the sky dried. The work then progressed by painting only the area he could finish in a day. As a builder constructs in material, he constructed with color. Tom became what he painted. Tom worked three to four hours on two square inches of the 30" X 40" canvas and finished in five months. By the time he finished the work he had moved out of New York City back to his home town of Cincinnati. He had met the love of his life while on a hometown visit and she did not want to New York City or travel the circuit of Palm Beach, NYC and Nantucket that Tom had become accustomed to. Sadly his sister and brother divorced and the painting was put up for auction. It was purchased by Ron Steensland of Lexington, Kentucky.