Edna Schenk: The Artist as Traveler
FAYETTE, Mo. – The paintings of a native Missourian who is a prominent
artist on the West Coast will be featured at an upcoming exhibition at
The Ashby-Hodge Gallery of American Art on the Central Methodist College
campus in Fayette.
Titled "Edna Schenk: The Artist as Traveler," the exhibition will
feature 33 paintings done by Schenk over the past four decades as she
traveled throughout western Europe and the Mediterranean. These include
oils, pastels and watercolors painted while she was in England, France,
Germany, Greece, Italy and other European countries. The show opens
March 23 and will run through May 13. Gallery hours will be from 1:30
p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and from 2:30 p.m. to
4:30 p.m. on Sundays. For more information or to arrange a group tour,
contact Dr. Joseph E. Geist, gallery curator, at (660) 248-6304 or
248-6324.
"There is much excitement about this exhibition and about Edna coming
back to Fayette for the show," Geist said. Schenk, a resident of
Ventura, Calif., will be present for a special reception in her honor at
The Ashby-Hodge Gallery from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., April 25. She is a 1935
graduate of Central Methodist College, where she received her bachelor
of arts degree. She also studied art at the University of Wisconsin and
San Fernando Valley State College. Following graduation from CMC, Schenk
taught art at Boonville High School from 1937 to 1942, before accepting
a teaching position in Illinois. She later moved to California, where
she was an art teacher in the Ventura Public School System from 1952 to
1972. Throughout her teaching career and after retiring, Schenk has
remained active as an artist.
Schenk began the first of her many trips abroad to Europe in the 1950s
during summer vacations from teaching, later staying for up to a year
during sabbatical leaves. She lived among the native inhabitants,
drawing her inspiration not only from what she saw but also from the
many people she came to know and her differing cultural experiences in
each locale. She would spend her time drawing, painting and viewing the
Old Masters, as well as seeking out the works of contemporary artists,
and would return to the United States each time with sketchbooks filled
with material for future paintings.
Schenk’s paintings have been on exhibition as far away as the Diogeneous
Art Gallery in Athens, Greece, and throughout the West Coast of the
United States, including the Bryant Hale Gallery in Palm Springs,
Calif., and the Ventura County Government Center. Her works now hang in
more than 300 private collections in this country and several
collections in Europe. The subject matter of her European works includes
many well-known settings, such as the Roman Forum, the Greek Island of
Corfu, Bern, London, Venice, Paris, Berlin, as well as portraits of Pope
John Paul II in a crowd in Naples and a young woman on the Isle of
Crete. Geist and former Ashby-Hodge Gallery curator Thomas L. Yancey
described the show as "works of Romantic Realism with poetical
qualities."
