A great review on the Retrospective booklet:
reviews.skbooks.com
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl, September 2015
The softcover book
Fritz Stehwien: A Retrospective,
originally published in 1993 and later released with an updated
biography, was a family affair. The book-not unlike a gallery catalogue
produced to accompany a major artist’s show-is prefaced by introductions
to the German-born artist’s life and work by daughter Barbara Stehwien
and daughter-in-law Nancy Robinson-Stehwien. What follows is 20
attractive pages of black and white and colour images of the prolific
artist’s work, including landscapes, portraits, and still-lifes.
First, the man. In the introductions we learn that Stehwien was
the quintessential artist, always ready to capture the spirit of what
was around him, and as such he lived a full and interesting life. “I
have not known him to go anywhere without his materials,” his daughter
writes, adding that if he didn’t have everything that was required, he
would “improvise using the back of painted or printed matter, even
restaurant napkins.” She says he would use “any old pen rather than lose
an important moment.”
The use of “moment” here lends a clue to the value the subject
of this book saw in those brief snatches of time, when perhaps the sun
was only momentarily striking the leaves of a tree and making them
golden, or brightening a distant field in a prairie scene, like he
illustrated in his painting “Old Farmyard, 1984”.
The author speaks of her father’s vocation as “an inherent
part” of him. “Even at family get-togethers he will not rest.” This
passion is reiterated by his daughter-in-law, Nancy, who writes of the
artist’s “zest for life,” the “unerring perspective evident in his
rendering of buildings and cityscapes,” and “his ability to see the
subject of a painting in something most of us would pass by without a
second glance.”
Now, the work. Through his spontaneous charcoal and pastel sketches;
his oil portraits; his pencil, pen, and ink drawings; woodcuts; and his
acrylics-indeed it seems he covered all the media-I agree with his
daughter that her father was a “versatile” and highly-skilled artist.
Apparently the “powers that be” at Saskatoon City Hall believe the same,
as Stehwien’s name has been added to the list of those who will one day
have a city park named after them.
I was particularly moved by the book’s front and back cover
images. On the front, “Autumn at the Lake,” an atmospheric acrylic
painted in 1989; and on the back, a Saskatoon winter scene, revealing
children playing on a riverside hill, the Bessborough Hotel rising
proudly in the background. Lovely. I also much enjoyed his precise pen
and ink renderings in “Russian Peasants” (1942), “Warsaw” (1944), and my
favourite (perhaps because I know the subject so well), “White Pelicans
in Saskatoon” (1993). The latter made me homesick.
The book concludes with an impressive biography. Clearly
Stehwien was as generous as he was gifted: in his final year, 2008,
several paintings were donated to organizations, including the Saskatoon
Symphony, Open Door Society, Boys & Girl Club in Saskatoon, and to
St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation.
