The Lindsborg News-Record Review
"A look behind the Art of Lydia's World"
by
John Marshall*
March 31, 2011
Printed April 7th
"The effect of a good painting, like a good paragraph, is to make something that was ground out seem as though it were dashed off. You think, “Oh, I could do that.” Until you realize that you can’t.
"One part of an eye-opening exhibit in downtown Lindsborg reveals the groundwork behind the painting of a Kansas landscape: photocopies of the notes and sketches of the late Lydia Sohlberg-Deere. From her, we learn, the whole image began with the parts, with making lines, noting colors and shadows, rock-by-rock, sprig and bush, the slant of a hill to tree and water, the sweep and hue of a pearl sky. Here we see the grinding work behind an image that seems so natural that it must have appeared with only a few sweeps of a brush.
"The Hidden Art and Photography of Lydia Sohlberg-Deere opened March 24 at the former Studio Lindsborg, 113 N. Main, and will run through Easter Sunday, April 24. A public reception will be from 4 – 7 PM. Sunday, April 3, at the gallery.
"The exhibit is the final public showing of the art of Sohlberg-Deere, who photographed much of life in Lindsborg and at Bethany College at the turn of the last century and into the early 1900s. Mrs. Sohlberg-Deere, who died in 1943, was a prolific photographer and a talented painter who studied at one time under the iconic Birger Sandzén. She was married to Prof. Emil O. Deere, a leader among early faculty and administrators at Bethany College.
"This vast show may require at least two visits – the first, a scouting mission to consider the reach of 130 photographs and copies of paintings and the scope of their history; another, perhaps, is to take in the many diaries, sketch books and notes, the letters and cards among the Deeres, the Sohlbergs, the Sandzéns, their families and friends (Three visits would be better.)
"Many of Lydia’s photographs have been exhibited in “Lydia’s World,” a periodic display in the windows of the Sundstrom Building at Main and Lincoln Streets in downtown Lindsborg. Mrs. Sohlberg-Deere’s great grand niece, Fran Cochran, organized those exhibits and this show. Cochran, of Menlo Park, Calif., is a 1968 graduate of Bethany College and has written numerous historical articles for the News-Records."
*Mr. Marshall, then, was the owner and editor of the Lindsborg News Record (LNR). After selling the newspaper in 2012, he continues to write a column for it titled "The Valley Voice" and a column for the Rural Messenger for Central Kansas.
Studio 113 North Main
- site of Lydia's World last exhibition -
2011
"A look behind the Art of Lydia's World"
by
John Marshall*
March 31, 2011
Printed April 7th
"The effect of a good painting, like a good paragraph, is to make something that was ground out seem as though it were dashed off. You think, “Oh, I could do that.” Until you realize that you can’t.
"One part of an eye-opening exhibit in downtown Lindsborg reveals the groundwork behind the painting of a Kansas landscape: photocopies of the notes and sketches of the late Lydia Sohlberg-Deere. From her, we learn, the whole image began with the parts, with making lines, noting colors and shadows, rock-by-rock, sprig and bush, the slant of a hill to tree and water, the sweep and hue of a pearl sky. Here we see the grinding work behind an image that seems so natural that it must have appeared with only a few sweeps of a brush.
"The Hidden Art and Photography of Lydia Sohlberg-Deere opened March 24 at the former Studio Lindsborg, 113 N. Main, and will run through Easter Sunday, April 24. A public reception will be from 4 – 7 PM. Sunday, April 3, at the gallery.
"The exhibit is the final public showing of the art of Sohlberg-Deere, who photographed much of life in Lindsborg and at Bethany College at the turn of the last century and into the early 1900s. Mrs. Sohlberg-Deere, who died in 1943, was a prolific photographer and a talented painter who studied at one time under the iconic Birger Sandzén. She was married to Prof. Emil O. Deere, a leader among early faculty and administrators at Bethany College.
"This vast show may require at least two visits – the first, a scouting mission to consider the reach of 130 photographs and copies of paintings and the scope of their history; another, perhaps, is to take in the many diaries, sketch books and notes, the letters and cards among the Deeres, the Sohlbergs, the Sandzéns, their families and friends (Three visits would be better.)
"Many of Lydia’s photographs have been exhibited in “Lydia’s World,” a periodic display in the windows of the Sundstrom Building at Main and Lincoln Streets in downtown Lindsborg. Mrs. Sohlberg-Deere’s great grand niece, Fran Cochran, organized those exhibits and this show. Cochran, of Menlo Park, Calif., is a 1968 graduate of Bethany College and has written numerous historical articles for the News-Records."
*Mr. Marshall, then, was the owner and editor of the Lindsborg News Record (LNR). After selling the newspaper in 2012, he continues to write a column for it titled "The Valley Voice" and a column for the Rural Messenger for Central Kansas.
Studio 113 North Main
- site of Lydia's World last exhibition -
2011
