David Lenz
Encyclopedia
David Lenz is an American
portrait
painter
.
Since 1990 Lenz has painted intimate and highly realistic portraits of unsung Americans. Lenz is perhaps best known for winning the grand prize in the 2006 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Organized by the National Portrait Gallery
, part of the Smithsonian Institution
, this inaugural competition attracted more than 4,000 entries from across the country. The resulting exhibition of 51 artists’ works were shown at the National Portrait Gallery from June 23, 2006 to February 19, 2007.
Lenz’s winning entry, an oil painting titled Sam and the Perfect World depicts his son Sam, who has Down syndrome
, amidst an idealized rural Wisconsin landscape.
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in Ontario
, Canada. These early paintings were influenced greatly by Tom Uttech
, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and by the luminous light quality of Hudson River School
artists Albert Bierstadt
, Frederic Church and Sanford Gifford.
After moving to the east side of Milwaukee, Lenz began to paint the neighborhoods and people of the central city. The city’s children, mostly African-American, very quickly became the focus of his paintings. In these works, completed between about 1990 to 2000, the hope and vitality of the children’s faces contrasts starkly with the worn down reused sidewalks, streets and houses of the central city.
In 1999, Lenz embarked on a series of paintings depicting the lives of Wisconsin dairy farmers Ervin and Mercedes Wagner. The never-ending work of dairy farming
, the toll it takes on the body, and the cultural isolation of rural life are themes of this series. Between 2000 and 2005 Lenz almost exclusively painted pictures of the Wagners and their farm. This series has been exhibited extensively in regional museums throughout the Midwest. Thistles, completed in 2001, is perhaps the most widely reproduced and celebrated painting of the Wagner farm series.
The third area of interest for the artist, paintings depicting the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, was inspired by the birth of his son Sam, who was born with Down syndrome
. Lenz contemplated the series for eight years until, in the summer of 2005, he entered the first major painting of the series in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition.
Lenz’s subjects are people who society has taken for granted, forgotten or overlooked. These unsung people are portrayed in an empathic way, and the extensive landscape surrounding the subjects tells much about their lives and the community beyond. Lenz incorporates various elements as metaphors to deepen the meaning of what, on the face of it, looks very straightforward and naturalistic. Sometimes Lenz takes dramatic liberties with reality, and the use of metaphors occasionally drives the scene decidedly towards the surreal.
In “Sam and the Perfect World,” the lush and idealistic rolling hills of Wisconsin is a metaphor for a modern civil society that values perfection. Humankind has transformed the landscape for his own use, altering this Garden of Eden, and erected a barbed wire fence; poignantly separating Sam for the rest of the world. A halo around the sun represents God looking down upon the handwork of Humankind.
Lenz is influenced by the isolated figures of Edward Hopper
, the regionalist sensibility of Grant Wood
, and by the symbolic meaning infused in the people and objects of painter Andrew Wyeth
.
The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition first place award also entitled Lenz to paint a portrait of a remarkable American for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection. On May 9, 2009, the Gallery unveiled Lenz's historic portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver
, the first portrait the Gallery has ever commissioned of an individual who had not served as a U.S. President or First Lady. The portrait depicts Mrs. Shriver with four Special Olympics
athletes and one Best Buddies
participant on the beach near her Cape Cod home. In the painting from left to right are Airika Straka (Special Olympics Wisconsin), Katie Meade (Best Buddies Iowa), Andy Leonard (Special Olympics Ohio), Loretta Claiborne (Special Olympics Pennsylvania), Mrs. Shriver and Marty Sheets (Special Olympics North Carolina).
In 2010, his commission "Wishes in the Wind", depicting three disadvantaged Milwaukee children blowing soap bubble
s, was hung in the Wisconsin Governor's Mansion
. In 2011, newly elected Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker
removed the painting and replaced it with a 140-year-old portrait of Old Abe
the War Eagle, the most famous of all Civil War mascots.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
.
Since 1990 Lenz has painted intimate and highly realistic portraits of unsung Americans. Lenz is perhaps best known for winning the grand prize in the 2006 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Organized by the National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery (United States)
The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in Washington, D.C., administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous individual Americans.-Building:...
, part of the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
, this inaugural competition attracted more than 4,000 entries from across the country. The resulting exhibition of 51 artists’ works were shown at the National Portrait Gallery from June 23, 2006 to February 19, 2007.
Lenz’s winning entry, an oil painting titled Sam and the Perfect World depicts his son Sam, who has Down syndrome
Down syndrome
Down syndrome, or Down's syndrome, trisomy 21, is a chromosomal condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 21st chromosome. It is named after John Langdon Down, the British physician who described the syndrome in 1866. The condition was clinically described earlier in the 19th...
, amidst an idealized rural Wisconsin landscape.
Biography
The grandson of painter Nic Lenz, and the son of an art dealer, Lenz received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1985. In the spring of 1989, after four years in publishing and advertising as an art director, Lenz left commercial art to become a full-time fine artist. At first he painted landscapes based on his travels to northern Wisconsin and Quetico Provincial ParkQuetico Provincial Park
Quetico Provincial Park is a large wilderness park in Northwestern Ontario, Canada, renowned for its excellent canoeing and fishing. This park shares its southern border with Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which is part of the larger Superior National Forest...
in Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Canada. These early paintings were influenced greatly by Tom Uttech
Tom Uttech
Tom Uttech is an American landscape painter known for his moody depictions of North American woodlands, and animals that inhabit them.-About:...
, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and by the luminous light quality of Hudson River School
Hudson River school
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism...
artists Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion...
, Frederic Church and Sanford Gifford.
After moving to the east side of Milwaukee, Lenz began to paint the neighborhoods and people of the central city. The city’s children, mostly African-American, very quickly became the focus of his paintings. In these works, completed between about 1990 to 2000, the hope and vitality of the children’s faces contrasts starkly with the worn down reused sidewalks, streets and houses of the central city.
In 1999, Lenz embarked on a series of paintings depicting the lives of Wisconsin dairy farmers Ervin and Mercedes Wagner. The never-ending work of dairy farming
Dairy farming
Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or an animal husbandry, enterprise, for long-term production of milk, usually from dairy cows but also from goats and sheep, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale.Most dairy farms...
, the toll it takes on the body, and the cultural isolation of rural life are themes of this series. Between 2000 and 2005 Lenz almost exclusively painted pictures of the Wagners and their farm. This series has been exhibited extensively in regional museums throughout the Midwest. Thistles, completed in 2001, is perhaps the most widely reproduced and celebrated painting of the Wagner farm series.
The third area of interest for the artist, paintings depicting the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, was inspired by the birth of his son Sam, who was born with Down syndrome
Down syndrome
Down syndrome, or Down's syndrome, trisomy 21, is a chromosomal condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 21st chromosome. It is named after John Langdon Down, the British physician who described the syndrome in 1866. The condition was clinically described earlier in the 19th...
. Lenz contemplated the series for eight years until, in the summer of 2005, he entered the first major painting of the series in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition.
The work
From a short distance Lenz’s paintings appear to be strikingly realistic, even photographic, upon closer inspection however, they are actually made up of thousands of brushstrokes. Lenz starts a new painting by initially working out ideas in small pencil “thumbnail” drawings. The artist then photographs all the various elements of the image individually and these are used as the main reference material for the final painting. For a major work, he also completes an extensive array of color sketches. After the composition is fully developed, the image is carefully drawn out with pencil on a stretched canvas or board. Lenz’s painting technique is quite traditional; straight oil paint is applied using small round sable brushes over a primed and warmly tinted linen canvas.Lenz’s subjects are people who society has taken for granted, forgotten or overlooked. These unsung people are portrayed in an empathic way, and the extensive landscape surrounding the subjects tells much about their lives and the community beyond. Lenz incorporates various elements as metaphors to deepen the meaning of what, on the face of it, looks very straightforward and naturalistic. Sometimes Lenz takes dramatic liberties with reality, and the use of metaphors occasionally drives the scene decidedly towards the surreal.
In “Sam and the Perfect World,” the lush and idealistic rolling hills of Wisconsin is a metaphor for a modern civil society that values perfection. Humankind has transformed the landscape for his own use, altering this Garden of Eden, and erected a barbed wire fence; poignantly separating Sam for the rest of the world. A halo around the sun represents God looking down upon the handwork of Humankind.
Lenz is influenced by the isolated figures of Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
, the regionalist sensibility of Grant Wood
Grant Wood
Grant DeVolson Wood was an American painter, born four miles east of Anamosa, Iowa. He is best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest, particularly the painting American Gothic, an iconic image of the 20th century.- Life and career :His family moved to Cedar Rapids after his...
, and by the symbolic meaning infused in the people and objects of painter Andrew Wyeth
Andrew Wyeth
Andrew Newell Wyeth was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century....
.
The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition first place award also entitled Lenz to paint a portrait of a remarkable American for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection. On May 9, 2009, the Gallery unveiled Lenz's historic portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, DSG a member of the Kennedy family, sister to President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward Kennedy, was the founder in 1962 of Camp Shriver, and in 1968, the Special Olympics...
, the first portrait the Gallery has ever commissioned of an individual who had not served as a U.S. President or First Lady. The portrait depicts Mrs. Shriver with four Special Olympics
Special Olympics
Special Olympics is the world's largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, providing year-round training and competitions to more than 3.1 million athletes in 175 countries....
athletes and one Best Buddies
Best Buddies International
Best Buddies International is a nonprofit 501 organization. It consists of volunteers that attempt to create opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities ....
participant on the beach near her Cape Cod home. In the painting from left to right are Airika Straka (Special Olympics Wisconsin), Katie Meade (Best Buddies Iowa), Andy Leonard (Special Olympics Ohio), Loretta Claiborne (Special Olympics Pennsylvania), Mrs. Shriver and Marty Sheets (Special Olympics North Carolina).
In 2010, his commission "Wishes in the Wind", depicting three disadvantaged Milwaukee children blowing soap bubble
Soap bubble
A soap bubble is a thin film of soapy water enclosing air, that forms a hollow sphere with an iridescent surface. Soap bubbles usually last for only a few seconds before bursting, either on their own or on contact with another object. They are often used for children's enjoyment, but they are also...
s, was hung in the Wisconsin Governor's Mansion
Wisconsin Governor's Mansion
The Executive Residence, known better as the Governor's Mansion, is located at 99 Cambridge Road in the Village of Maple Bluff, Wisconsin on the eastern shore of Lake Mendota...
. In 2011, newly elected Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker
Scott Walker (politician)
Scott Kevin Walker is an American Republican politician who began serving as the 45th Governor of Wisconsin on January 3, 2011, after defeating Democratic candidate Tom Barrett, 52 percent to 47 percent in the November 2010 general election...
removed the painting and replaced it with a 140-year-old portrait of Old Abe
Old Abe
Old Abe , a bald eagle, was the mascot of the 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the American Civil War. It later was depicted as the screaming eagle mascot on the insignia of the U.S...
the War Eagle, the most famous of all Civil War mascots.
Awards
Besides winning the grand prize in the 2006 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, Lenz also was included in the 2006 Midwest Edition of New American Paintings. In 2008, Lenz was awarded a Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2009 he was inducted as a fellow of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters.External links
- http://www2.jsonline.com/enter/finearts/sep00/lenz21092000.aspAuer, James. Mural pays homage to the bravery of children with illnesses. Milwaukee Journal SentinelMilwaukee Journal SentinelThe Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. It is the primary newspaper in Milwaukee, the largest newspaper in Wisconsin and is distributed widely throughout the state...
Sept. 20, 2000] - Bub, Barry. Commentary: Sam and the Perfect World. Medicine Academic. Volume 82, Issue 2, February 2007
- Neary, Lynn. Looking History in the Eye at Portrait Gallery. National Public Radio: Talk of the Nation, July 13, 2006
- http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-162508120.htmlWorland, Gayle. Behind the Brush: Realist Painter David Lenz Finds a Rural Wonderland in Sauk County. Wisconsin State JournalWisconsin State JournalThe Wisconsin State Journal is a daily newspaper published in Madison, Wisconsin by Lee Enterprises. The newspaper, the second largest in Wisconsin, is primarily distributed in a 19 county region in south-central Wisconsin...
April 22, 2007]