The Georgia Museum of Art Presents an Edmund Lewandowski Retrospective

Written by Alistair Kennedy Friday, 09 September 2011 23:00

Athens, GA.-  The Georgia Museum of Art is pleased to present "Edmund Lewandowski: Precisionism and Beyond" on view in the Virginia and Alfred Kennedy and Philip Henry Alston Jr. Galleries from September 10th through December 3rd. Midwestern artist Edmund Lewandowski (1914–1998) was an influential painter and art educator known for his images of industrial, urban and architectural subject matter. Organized by the Flint Institute of Arts, “Edmund Lewandowski: Precisionism and Beyond” surveys all aspects of Lewandowski’s oeuvre, which includes a wide array of subjects in varied styles and media. This monographic exhibition features almost 50 examples of his work, including two paintings from the permanent collection at the Georgia Museum of Art, and examines the artist’s career and impact as an artist and educator.

Edmund Lewandowski was born in Milwaukee in 1914 and attended the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee from 1931 to 1934. Following graduation, he assumed a teaching position in public school as a means of support though he pursued painting and commercial commissions in advertising and magazines on his own.  In 1936, Edith Halpert, an important New York art dealer of modern art, invited him to join her gallery, the noted Downtown Gallery. That year, he also began painting murals for the Federal Art Project, and during 1939 and 1940, he executed post office murals in Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin. From 1942 to 1946, Lewandowski made maps and concealments while serving in the United States Air Force. In 1947, he went back to the Layton School of Art where he was appointed to the faculty, but he also continued to do commercial work. In 1949, he moved to a teaching position at Florida State University, in Tallahassee, where he remained until 1954. Following his tenure in Florida, he returned to the Layton School of Art as Director until 1972. Lewandowski was chair of the Art Department at Winthrop from 1973-1984 and was named professor emeritus upon his retirement. Lewandowski is recalled by students at Winthrop and members of the Rock Hill community for his teaching, service to the community and his exceptional artwork. He remained in Rock Hill until his death in 1998.

The Georgia Museum of Art, on the campus of the University of Georgia, in Athens, is both an academic museum and, since 1982, the official art museum of the state of Georgia. The permanent collection consists of American paintings, primarily 19th- and 20th-century; American, European and Asian works on paper; the Samuel H. Kress Study Collection of Italian Renaissance paintings; and growing collections of southern decorative arts and Asian art. From the time it was opened to the public in 1948 in the basement of an old library on the university’s historic North Campus, the museum has grown consistently both in the size of its collection and in the size of its facilities. Today the museum occupies a contemporary building in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the university’s burgeoning east campus. There, 79,000 square feet house more than 8,000 objects in the museum’s permanent collection—a dramatic leap from the core of 100 paintings donated by the museum’s founder, Alfred Heber Holbrook.Much of the museum’s collection of American paintings was donated by Holbrook in memory of his first wife, Eva Underhill Holbrook. Included in this collection are works by such luminaries as Frank Weston Benson, William Merritt Chase, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Georgia O’Keeffe, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, Jacob Lawrence and Theodore Robinson.


Over the years it has been impossible to separate the history of the museum from the story of Holbrook’s generosity. Numerous museum exhibitions have traveled to national and international venues. When “Adriaen van Ostade: Etchings of Peasant Life in Holland’s Golden Age” was exhibited at the Rembrandt House in Amsterdam, the catalogue quickly sold out, becoming a text for the study of 17th-century Dutch printmaking in classrooms across the United States. This exhibition also reflected the importance of prints and drawings in the programming of the museum, which houses one of the finest collections of works on paper in the Southeast. The collection includes Old Master prints, Parisian prints of the 1890s and American prints and drawings of the early 20th century. Exhibitions from international museums such as the National Gallery of Scotland, the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, the Rembrandt House and the San Carlos National Museum in Mexico City have all been displayed in the galleries of the museum over the past decade. The museum also offers traveling exhibitions formed from its permanent collection to other museums and art institutes around Georgia and the Southeast. Since the early 1970s the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art, a support group of more than 1,200 members, have hosted fundraisers and openings for exhibitions and have sponsored exhibitions and educational programs at the museum. In April 1996, the Georgia Museum of Art opened a new building on the East Campus of the university as part of the Performing and Visual Arts Complex, which also includes the School of Music, the Performing Arts Center, and, now, the Lamar Dodd School of Art. The new building allowed for larger and more ambitious exhibitions and a new emphasis on professional practices, trends that will continue to hold true in 2011 and beyond. The museum has become a leader, in particular, among university museums, and its educational programs have been the most tangible example of the balance it strives to achieve among state, local, and university audiences as it seeks to fulfill its trifold mission of teaching, research, and service. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.georgiamuseum.org

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