1992-1993
1993
1993-1994
1994
1994-1995
1995
1995-1996
1996
1996-1997
1997
1997-1998
1998
1998-1999
1999
1999-2000
2000
2000-2001
2001
2001-2002
2002
2002-2003
2003
2003-2004
2004
2004-2005
2005

This exhibition of paintings by Walter Stuempfig marks the reopening of the Reading Public Museum, after extensive renovation and expansion. The exhibition was chosen for this occasion - A Treasure Renewed - because in an age of aesthetic uncertainty, Stuempfig's paintings reassure us with a new awareness of the great traditions in Western art. The Forbes family and The Forbes Magazine Collection generously agreed to lend a selection from the remarkable holding of paintings by Stuempfig and for this we extend our gratitude. Encouragement and support of the exhibition were also given by Blase Gavlick, Esq., Chairman of the Foundation for the Reading Public Museum and the Board of the Museum. We are further indebted to Margaret Kelly Trombly, Bonnie Kirschstein, and Gera Matobo of the Forbes Magazine Collection for their enthusiasm and efforts in making this exhibition a reality.

The singular vision of Walter Stuempfig (1914-1970) was inhabited by the ghost of Thomas Eakins and steeped in the heritage of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. As part of that great legacy in American art, the artist not only studied, but taught at the Academy for twenty-two years. Stuempfig's neo-romantic, non-moderist style represents a continuation of nineteenth-century academicism at a time when America was becoming the international center of the art world with the emergence of Abstract Expressionism. He took the documentations of the American Scene and added a poetic broodiness and enigmatic qualities which were more European than American.

His paintings flirt with Surrealism with their mood of suspended energy, anecdotal dislocations, and a narrative which suggests a story might be played out in a variety of ways. Often one senses an inchoate apprehension that suggests some undefined action is about to happen. Against the prevailing trends of mid-century American art, he perfected a romantic realist style which was more related to Continental Old Masters than it was to his contemporaries. Often compared to Edward Hopper, whom he admired, Stuempfig's painstaking and exacting technique was subtler and more polished than Hopper;s and his figural work has a greater subjectivity, infused with nostalgia, personal sentiment, feeling and emotion. A mutual love of old buildings is eveident, but Hopper's light is more intense. Yet, both artists were able to convey a mid-century angst and disengagement with their portrayal of ordinary people caught int he ambiguity of isolation. From a contemporary perspective these figures possess a detached, quiet dignity and strength while at the same time suggesting a postwar atomic age strangeness.

Stuempfig also bears comparison with the Neo-Romantic movement in America which is exemplified by the three Russian emigres: Pavel Tchelitchew and the brothers, Leonid and Eugene Berman. Their mode of romanticism was darker and more disquieting than Stuempfig's, as they made little attempt to reconcile their old-work sensibility with the American Scene. Stuempfig, on the other hand, loved to paint the modern American urban environment, stressing such picturesque aspects as dilapidated facades and vacant lots. His poetic, atmospheric interpretations of drab urbanity were balanced by his paintings of the verdant Pennsylvania countryside and the moody Atlantic shoreline. His love of the old towns along the banks of the Schuykill River is evidenced in numerous paintings. Many of these river scenes recall landscapes painted by skilled Berks County artists over the years. In his more than 1,500 paintings, Stuempfig successfully adapted an Italianate sense of style to distinctly American subjects, transforming them with technical virtuosity and atmospheric sensitivity.

Robert P. Metzger, Ph.D.
Director, CEO, Chief Curator Reading Public Museum

EXHIBIT SPONSORS:
This exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.