Biography from Kiechel Fine Art:
| "I’m a Midwesterner who has stayed put to make sense of where I
live. My interest in the land is crystallized in my paintings
about it," says Jacobshagen.
By combining intimate reflections with a deep understanding and respect
for nature, Keith Jacobshagen celebrates landscape in a manner
reminiscent of the early Dutch masters.
Through their trademark low horizons and wide, dominant skies,
Jacobshagen's paintings elicit a variety of emotions inspired by the
Midwestern countryside.
At the site, Jacobshagen takes notes that include exact time and
location as well as other intangibles such as wind levels and
smells. In this manner, his small works are akin to diary entries
or the comprehensive landscape descriptions of a Willa Cather novel.
Though Jacobshagen moves into the studio as his paintings increase in
size, each work maintains the same freshness of life as those painted
in the field. The vantage point is placed above eye level in the
majority of his work. This perspective, along with the artist's
careful arrangement of forms on the picture plane energizes the scene
through what "Art in America" describes as "romantic self expression
and a naturalist's cooly objective vision."
Raised in Wichita, Kansas, Jacobshagen graduated from the Kansas City
Art Institute and received his Master of Fine Arts from the University
of Kansas. His work has been received with high acclaim
throughout the United States and was featured on CBS's "Sunday Morning
with Charles Osgood."
Currently a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
Jacobshagen received the Outstanding Research and Creativity Award for
his extraordinary contributions. His work is featured on the
cover of the Smithsonian Press/University of Iowa publication Plain Pictures: Images of the American Prairie
and recently exhibited in the retrospective "Beyond the Horizon:
Paintings by Keith Jacobshagen, 1990-2005" at the Sioux City Art Center
in Sioux City, Iowa. |
Biography from AskART:
| One of Nebraska's best-known living painters, Keith Jacobshagen does
vast panoramic views, primarily of the Nebraska landscape. His
goal is to obscure or abstract the reality with fragments or
suggestions of shapes and places. "When people as me 'where is
this?' I point to my head . . . landscape painting is a cliche.
It's a long history of cliches. The best landscape painters, the ones
who have lasted, are the ones who have something interesting with the
cliches" (Lincoln Journal Star 7/19/2000).
In addition
to being a professional painter and graphic artist, Jacobshagen is a
Professor of Art at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.
His
method is to go outside directly to his subject matter, something he
does three days--Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays---out of each week,
regardless of the weather. He is a great believer in routine and
repetition, believing commitments are the core of his creativity.
He
stares long and hard at the view he wants to paint, believing that the
longer he looks the more he will see, and then begins to sketch,
applying thin layers of watercolor over the narrow stripe of graphite
that defines the distant horizon. He prefers the "Zen-like"
quality of watercolor, but also uses pastels. The work is
finished later in the studio, although for many years he did plein-air
painting, completing the work on site.
His interest in panoramic
views began in his childhood when he flew in airplanes with his father,
who was a test pilot for an aviation company in Wichita, Kansas.
He trained as a graphic designer and illustrator at the Kansas City Art
Institute and then worked in the Contemporary Design Department of
Hallmark Cards. After that he received his MFA from the
University of Kansas at Lawrence.
Source:
Lecture by the artist to the docents of Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery
|
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|