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A Tribute to Gaell Lindstrom 1919 - 2009
Show available:
September 26, 2009 through
January 16, 2010
This exhibit came about because of the strong support Gaell Lindstrom gave to the St. George Art Museum for many years and in many capacities, as well as the larger cultural community. He was a long time board member, and he and Marilyn have been museum members for as long as the membership program has been in effect. Marilyn was a Museum docent and supervisor for several years, and she, like Gaell, volunteered so that the St. George Art Museum could and would thrive.
Gaell also loaned two important Aldine Magazines from 1874 & 1875 and an 1875 Scribner’s Magazine to the Century of Sanctuary: the Art of Zion National Park. He later presented them as gifts for the permanent collection along with Clarence E. Dutton’s two volume masterpiece, Tertiary History of the Grand Cañon District published in 1882 by the Department of the Interior as part of the Monographs series of the United States Geological Survey. Of his own work, he donated the exceptional watercolor, Oaxaca Wall from 1980, and a portfolio of photographic prints of a project compiled in 1965 called, Zion Canyon: A Portfolio of Prints, while at Utah State University in Logan. This is Gaell’s third Museum exhibit at the St. George Art Museum. The last exhibit was titled, Gaell Lindstrom’s Private Watercolors and was on view from January 13 to March 24, 2007, as part of our Tenth Anniversary focus on noted area artists and local art groups.
This show is a tribute to a fine and accomplished artist with an amazing memory and acute visual sense. He gently shared and communicated his learned opinions and views.
Several themes run throughout Gaell’s art. In this exhibit his interest in house and roof scapes, people working and engaged in activities, abstraction, boats, and landscape can be seen as threads that appear throughout his career and connecting themes that he returned to time and again. On view at either ends of the Legacy Gallery are two works. One is a small early watercolor, Copper Hill, from 1952 and on the opposite end is one of his latest paintings, an oil, titled The Old Way, from 2006.
Many of Gaell’s watercolors are richly textured with layered brushwork in autumnal paint tones. This effect creates a sense of mystery and probes into that which lies beyond the surface and beyond the physical subject. These works seek the psychological interior and delicately search the unknown.
Another aspect of his career that is less well known in Southern Utah is his authorship of Thomas Moran in Utah. This little treasure of knowledge presents his art historical research on the great 19th century landscape painter, Thomas Moran. It was presented as the 68th Faculty Honor Lecture at USU.
He worked not only in watercolor, his medium, but oils, prints, inks, photography, pastels, pottery (master’s degree project for the California College of Arts & Crafts, “Development of Clay Bodies & Glazes from Natural Deposits Occurring in Utah, Southern Idaho, & Northern Arizona” completed in 1963 is on view), as well as music (note the flute in Gittins’ portrait). Gaell was a world traveler, as this exhibit attests from his pieces done in S. America, the Mediterranean, Europe, and Asia. As several people have noted he really was a Renaissance man. The loss of this multi-faceted artist and cultured mind is great. However his legacy lives on through his work, his extraordinary influence as a teacher (remarks from several of his students are on placed on the walls in the exhibit), and for a time in this exhibit in the Legacy Gallery.
BIOGRAPHY:
Born Salt Lake City, Utah, July 4, 1919
Attended Public Schools Salt Lake City
B. F. A. University of Utah, Logan, UT
M.F. A. California College of Arts & Crafts, Oakland, CA.
1954 began teaching College of Southern Utah, now, Southern Utah University in Cedar City, UT
1957 transferred to Utah State University in Logan, Utah, taught ceramics, paintings, and introductory art courses
1984 retired
Former member of the American Watercolor Society and the California Watercolor Society
Recipient of numerous awards & honored with several solo shows.
Filmed & edited “Mateo: Potter of San Bartolo de Coyotopec,” a 30-minute documentary film shortly before his retirement.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Why should one paint? I can only say that in my case I enjoy the world’s visual imagery, I find excitement in it. As I get older my appreciation increases and now I believe everything is worth a second glance and all is beautiful. I do not have a philosophy of art. I prefer not to talk about painting but would rather simply enjoy a visual experience. Painting starts where words leave off. A more abstract means, verbal language, cannot be used to much advantage in describing a less abstract means such as a painting. I hope not to produce paintings which need words. I believe aesthetic experiences are often enhanced by sharing. Sharing not with words but by simply being in the presence of someone seemingly having the same experience!
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