Artist Biography & Facts

Xtian B (Christian) Newswanger

Following is text from an article in Maine Antique Digest, 2007: It pertains to both Itian Newswanger and his father, Vernon Newsmanger.

"A Trove of Amish Art and History" by Cynthia A. Hummel

A treasure trove of art and history has been rediscovered in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The late father and son team of Vernon "Kiehl" Newswanger and Christian "Xtian" Newswanger created a 1954 book, Amishland, that earned praise from The New York Times. Their artworks and descriptions documented the everyday lives of their Amish neighbors, dating back to 1920.

Mark Lefever, who owns two Lancaster County antiques businesses, helped heirs of the Newswanger collection in a several-day process of moving the contents of an attic. The heirs and Lefever knew Newswanger artworks were stored there but were surprised to find hundreds of original paintings, prints, and copperplates. In addition, they found paintings by Kiehl's wife, Myra Butterworth Newswanger, who painted floral scenes for the Philadelphia flower show and has work in the Barnes Foundation's permanent collection.

"The works [of Kiehl and Xtian] provide a rare look at everyday Amish life in the first half of the twentieth century," Lefever said.

The treasures belong to the heirs of Dorothy Freyer, Xtian's girlfriend. The collection had been in the attic of Amishland Prints, a shop in the eastern Lancaster County village of Intercourse. Xtian and Dorothy passed away within three months of one another in spring 2005. Lefever, an admirer of the Newswangers' artworks, spent months tracking down the Freyer family, who live outside the Lancaster County area. They hope to find a buyer for the collection of original works as a whole. If a buyer cannot be found, Lefever explained, the collection depicting an earlier era of Lancaster County will be split up.

The Artists
Although the Newswangers' talent took them around the world, both returned to the Leola area of Lancaster County, where their family lived since the 1700's.

As a Penn State student, Kiehl (pronounced "keel") drew the architectural highlights of Lancaster City's Southern Market. He knew the people "standing market" from his youth, when he carried baskets for their customers and drew them as well. A drawing of Bishop Samuel Petersheim Stoltzfus won him the opportunity to study art in Paris in 1920.

Kiehl continued to draw the Amish upon returning home. Meanwhile prominent Philadelphians and Lancastrians commissioned him to do work for them. For example, an article in the former Lancaster Magazine described Kiehl's full-length portraits of William F. Slaymaker and his sister Jane Slaymaker Zimmerman. A 1933 clipping describes M.T. Garvin's ceremonial presentation of Kiehl's painting The Arrival of James Hamilton to Lancaster City. Garvin had commissioned the work depicting Hamilton's visit to Lancaster in 1729 to establish the city as the county seat. Kiehl included log homes as well as Native American and European residents in the scene.

Xtian declined Yale and University of Pennsylvania scholarships to apprentice with his father while attending nearby Franklin and Marshall College. He also studied at the National Art Academy in Dusseldorf, Germany on a Fulbright scholarship and at the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania. The permanent collections of the White House, the Library of Congress, the Boston Public Library, the New York Public Library, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art have examples of Xtian's work. Besides his Fulbright scholarship, Xtian's honors include a Louis Comfort Tiffany memorial scholarship in graphics, New York City Critic's Choice New Talent exhibit, and the American Federation of Arts USA traveling exhibition.

In an undated clipping, Xtian shared his interest in creating a series on close-knit groups, such as Native Americans or "fisher folk." He and Kiehl had spent three years traveling in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus as research for their art. Much of their work, however, was about the Amish with whom they lived and worked.

Amishland
Amishland features the Newswangers' drawings of everyday scenes in Plain Sect life, which shuns modern conveniences such as electricity and automobiles. Xtian provided narratives to describe the illustrations of Amish births, deaths, and just about everything in between. In 1955, New York Times critic B.A. Botkin wrote, "This unique combination of sketchbook and notebook by two dedicated Pennsylvania German artists, Kiehl Newswanger and his son, Christian, is one of the most original and authentic works to come out of the folk life of the 'plain people.'"

Through the book, the reader meets the people behind the art. In a story accompanying Yonnie Glick-Amish Boy, Xtian wrote that the one-room schoolhouse porch seemed huge to six-year-old Yonnie on his first day. Yonnie's older sister Katie is depicted on the same porch in Katie Glick-Amish Girl. We learn that at home Katie helped her parents carry filled pails after they milked their 86 cows twice a day. In another drawing, 19-year-old Linda is shown working on a hand-stitched quilt with a Tulip pattern for her hope chest, which already contains a quilt, embroidered pillowcases, and a dresser scarf. When increasing auto traffic made taking his wagon into town too dangerous, butcher Jacob Glick hired Xtian to drive him into Lancaster to "stand market" on Fridays and Saturdays. Xtian depicted Glick cutting a ham with a handsaw. In Old Jake and Katie Glick Old Jake wears a broad-brimmed hat and carries his oldest granddaughter and a basket on his way to market. Other characters include Katie Stoltzfus baking bread in a squirrel tail oven and David Zook shoeing a horse.

Although Southern Market has become offices, Lancaster's Central Market remains bustling with Amish and English (i.e., non-Amish) buying and selling meats, fruits, vegetables, and baked goods. Xtian's Amishfolk Standing Market was used in a promotional poster for Central Market.

Recent History
Lefever put a sampling of Newswanger art on display in White Horse, Pennsylvania. Kiehl's original drawing of Samuel Petersheim and a cubist painting Kiehl created in France demonstrates his range. Some of Myra's flower paintings and Xtian's etchings are also displayed.

Lefever said that to appraise the original works would be nearly impossible. "What is lacking is a documented list of sales," he explained. With the closing of Amishland Prints upon Xtian's and Dorothy's deaths, the availability of individual prints has declined, because the heirs seek a buyer of the whole group of prints and plates. He said, "We are hoping for a person or institution to say 'We are going to save this.'"

Jeri Scott does not believe Xtian stashed away the artworks by design. "That was simply the way Xtian conducted his business." He sold prints and kept the originals.
 
2007 by Maine Antique Digest
Online Source:
www.maineantiquedigest.com/articles_archive/articles/feb07/amish0207.htm

The following information is from Lancaster County Online
By LAURA KNOWLES
Correspondent

Xtian Newswanger, one of Lancaster best-known artists, was humorous and serious, fascinated by the Amish and by circus performers and a highly creative man who just happened to be a Fulbright scholar.

Jeri Scott of D & J Scott Galleries knows these things first-hand. She was a close friend of both Newswanger and his companion, Dorothy Freyer. Newswanger came to the gallery often, driven there by Freyer. After his death in 2005, a selection of his works was available at the gallery.

"This is an opportunity to see the work of a multifaceted artist who was one of the first to paint the Amish," says Scott. "But there is much more to him than that."

Scott recalls the years when Freyer, who used a walker herself, would drive Newswanger to his appointments. He was always interesting to talk to and Scott was intrigued by all of his experiences.

He was the son of artists, so his fate was sealed early on. His father was Vernon Kiehl Newswanger, who was born in Lancaster County in 1900 and died at age 80 in 1980. The Newswanger family dates back to the 1700s. His mother was Myra Butterworth of Philadelphia, an accomplished artist whose style has been compared to Mary Cassatt.

Their son, Christian, was born in 1927 and lived until the age of 78. Throughout his lifetime, Newswanger, who shortened his name to Xtian, as in Xmas with the X meaning "Christ," often signed his work with a large Xtian.

"I think a lot of people wondered what the X meant," says Scott. "It was his way of being a little different."

And he was.

Growing up in Lancaster County, he observed the Amish farmers as they worked the fields, hung out their quilts on wash lines, did their farm chores and went to market.

As a youth, Newswanger turned down scholarships to Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania to study art with his father, a professor at Franklin & Marshall College.

Later, the younger Newswanger received a prestigious Fulbright scholarship to study at the National Art Academy in Dusseldorf, Germany. He also studied pottery with one of the last of the old-time potters in Maryland.

The father and son both did many paintings of the Amish and did a collaborative book in 1954, which was called "Amishland." The in-depth study of Amish life features the Newswangers' drawings of the Amish and Mennonites of Lancaster County.

In a 1955 book review, B.A. Botkin of The New York Times wrote, "This unique combination of sketchbook and notebook by two dedicated Pennsylvania German artists, Kiehl Newswanger and his son, Christian, is one of the most original and authentic works to come out of the folk life of the plain people."

The Newswangers may have been known for their drawings of the Amish, but they had many other interests, occasionally doing some cubist-inspired works and abstracts.

Like Lancaster's famed artist Charles Demuth, the Newswangers were intrigued by performers. The father and son enjoyed watching the acrobats and animal trainers when the circus came to town each summer. In fact, some of Newswanger's circus performers resemble some of the theater and vaudeville paintings that Demuth did during his career. As Scott noted, they even spent several years traveling with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus to research their art.

Knowing Christian as well as I did, I am very pleased to be able to share his work with the people who may not have seen it before," says Scott.

Newswanger and Freyer were constant companions, recalls Scott. After he died in 2005, Freyer died just three months later. For a time his work was stashed away and this exhibition is a rare opportunity to acquire work done by an artist whose work can be seen at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Lancaster County folk art by Xtian Newswanger

Source:
Lancaster County Online
lancasteronline.com/article/local/350393_Plain-life--as-seen-by-a-complicated-artist.html#ixzz21xuflUq9

Following is text from Amazon.com accompanying the book listing of Amishland by Xtian Newswanger.

An informal history of the Old Order Amish of Lancaster County, PA, told in the first person. A diary-like account of the author's living and working with three generations of the Glick family, it is interspersed with many sketches and drawings by the author. The chapters include Quilting, At School, Amish Carpenters, Milking, The New Baby, Foot Washing and Home from Church. It is a gentle, sensitive, simply written book appealing to all ages.

Editorial Reviews
Review
"From the lovingly woven texture and pattern of mind skills and hand skills emerges a faithful, sympathetic picture of a gentle, warm and dignified folk". -- B.A. Botkin, social historian, The New York Times Book Review

About the Author
A 7th generation native of Lancaster County, PA, Christian B. Newswanger, aka Xtian Newswanger began an artistic career at an early age when he and his father, Kiehl Newswanger, a naturalistic portrait painter, portrayed the Amishfolk in their etchings and drawings. Xtian, a folklorist, writes what he knows, as his young Amish friend Aaron says," I read the book and I like it, and I'll tell you why I like it. Because it's the truth".

Thoughout Xtian's life he has worked closely with the Amish, taught art history and graphics at a private Quaker school, traveled abroad, even spent a year with the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus, always returning to his roots and heritage in Lancaster County.

Retired from teaching, Xtian nurtures his Amish friendships, while keeping a low profile at the Amishland Prints Gallery in Lancaster County.

A son of Vernon Kiehl Newswanger , he taught at the German Town Academy outside of Philadelphia.