FEATURING:

Ralph Fasanella, Harold William Ibach, Edgar Tolson, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Eddie Arning, William Howard Finster & Hunter Muldoon

RALPH FASANELLA (1914-1997) celebrated the common man and tackled complex issues of postwar America in colorful, socially minded paintings. Fasanella developed an astute and accessible style that reflected his affiliation with, and commitment to, the struggles waged by the working class for a dignified life.

In addition to the working class, Mr. Fasanella’s other great theme was baseball. He loved the game, with some of that excitement coming across in “Baseball, Holy Cow”, (1996) a marvelous, cheerful work showing the pitcher in motion & batter ready with the crowd waiting in anticipation in the background

When he sketched, however, Ralph became a silent observer. He utilized sketching as a means of perceiving with his eyes and ears. Spending much of his time in cafes, diners, fast food joints, greasy spoons, luncheonettes, or sitting on a stoop, any place he could spend a few hours soaking up the atmosphere, he sketched incessantly. Listening to the conversations around him he examined every detail of the way people held themselves and how they animated the environments they lived in.

His ability to sketch caught people’s attention. Many visited his table or perch to ask him what he was doing – coming to know and appreciate him as both a deeply sincere and interesting guy. Ralph came to understand the people and places he visited and sketched

in ways that most of us never perceive.

EDDIE ARNING (1899-1993) grew up on his father’s farm in Germania, Texas-about 50 miles northwest of Houston. Institutionalized for most of his adult life, Arning was introduced to drawing in 1964 by a hospital worker who supplied him with materials. Arning’s medium from 1964 to 1969 was Crayola’s. In 1969, he switched to oil pastels, or “Cray-pas.” Regardless of his media, Arning always worked in the same manner, covering the entire surface of the paper with dense strokes of color.

Eddie Arning’s early works & subjects were drawn from memory, however, he later took inspiration from newspaper stories, magazine photo’s, advertisements, and other material from pop culture. He stopped drawing in 1974. Arning’s work is in the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Fine Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the American Folk Art Museum in New York, among others.

HUNTER MULDOON:

Windows from abandon neighborhood houses are the new foundation for the layered wall constructions of Hunter Muldoon. Reverse painting on glass is one of the techniques Hunter deploys in alerting the viewer to the density of history contained within. These compositions evoke a wide range of decidedly urban transformations at once, physical in form and mystical in surface.

Hunter was born and raised in the historic Corktown neighborhood in Detroit Michigan. Having grown up in a time when Detroit felt very much so forgotten, he connects his work to that past, breathing new life into objects found scattered throughout the city. Working primarily on found windows from old abandoned homes in the area, Hunter applies a variety of techniques from reverse glass painting to mixed media construction and assemblage to create his complex images.