Articles

Clarence and the Prairie Print Makers were the subject of dozens of newspaper articles over the decades. 

Here's a small sampling of those featuring Clarence.

The Architect Who Became a Painter

By Henry C. Haskell

(From 1928. Permission to reprint by The Wichita Eagle.)  

Throughout this fall and winter a small class is meeting at the Central Intermediate School under the auspices of the Wichita Art Association. It is comprised largely of students from local public schools, from Fairmount College, and Friends University, but there are also several older persons with an amateur interest in art, who have taken advantage of the opportunities offered them to acquire some competent technical instruction. The attendance varies. Sometimes there are twenty persons present; again there may be as many as twenty-five. But the classes have been conducted successfully now for several years past and seem to have secured a rather permanent place in the artistic life of the community.

  The instructor who has charge of these classes, and has had for two years past, is so young in appearance that at first glance he might be mistaken for one of the students. He is Clarence Hotvedt, some of whose work, in oil, has been on exhibit recently at the Vail Galleries.

  Altho he lived in Wisconsin, Hotvedt started to attend the University of Minnesota, but he stayed only a year. His interests had shifted. Architecture, in which he was specializing, drew his attention to painting and general art work. The next year, instead of returning to Minneapolis, he went to Chicago and started in at the Art Institute.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps I may regret the change later. I haven’t yet. I am sorry, tho, that I didn’t continue with my university education. It would have been a great help.”

  Hotvedt studied three years at the Art Institute, and was graduated in 1923. The result of his schooling is evident in his work. The Art Institute differs from many art schools in the country by reason of its insistence upon general cultural values. It is the practice in many institutions to stress the practical side of the curriculum. This is, of course, in line with the prevailing educational mode in America today. The Art Institute does not attach much importance to a direct training for commercial art; its purpose is more to give the student some conception of the great theories of art and the philosophical backgrounds which lie behind them. For that reason, it insists upon a study of the history of art, as well as a general education in nearly all the branches, such as painting in oils and water color, drawing in crayon and charcoal, lithography, and etching. The theory upon which the Art institute is based, postulates that, given a broad foundation, a student of any ability at all will be able to work out the practice for himself.

  It is possibly on account of the training in theory which he received that Hotvedt has had such success with the Art classes here. He first took them over in the winter of 1923. Last year illness forced him to give up the work in the middle of the term, and his friend, Glen Golton, conducted the classes for the remainder of the year. Hotvedt, however, has been able to resume teaching again this year.

  In his own work Hotvedt is frankly experimental.

  “I’m not yet sure, you see, what I want to do,” he explained. “Heretofore I’ve concentrated on line. Now I’m working on color.”

  The change in Hotvedt’s interest is clearly shown by his work. The earlier oils are in rather light pastel shades. It is obviously form which has drawn his attention. The portraits, particularly in lithograph, exhibit a strong feeling for surfaces. The heads are plainly modeled and the various planes are differentiated, with almost accentuated regard for light values.  

  At the present time, although he has not abandoned his care for line, Hotvedt is working more largely in color. The Kansas landscapes are distinctive. A wheat field, with the grain shocked, and behind a mass of light green foliage. This same peculiar green appears in several of the landscapes. It is decorative, rather than real. Lately, however, he has been endeavoring to brighten up his colors. The leaves of the trees become more intense, the trunks, richer and darker. One painting has a splotch of red in the tree trunk.

  “See that,” Hotvedt said, pointing it out. “I should never have dared do that before.” And he laughed.

  One large canvas shows his changing interests in a rather remarkable fashion. It is a picture of Indians against a New Mexican background. There are half a dozen chief figures in various attitudes of prayer. Two show intense reverence; a child watches them, without understanding what it is all about; the others are in different moods of skepticism, graduating to complete disbelief and contempt. The idea is an interesting one embodying, as it does, dramatic and psychological implications. But it is essentially a conception of form and line. Or rather, it was, as originally planned. That was some time ago.

  Now, as the artist reaches the finishing touches of his work, he is paying far greater attention to the color, which, after all, seems to be the chief concern of the Taos school, almost to the exclusion of other considerations. The brilliant shades of the Indian blankets, the sunlight that bathes the background – these are the things upon which Hotvedt is bestowing most of his attention. He is even repainting certain portions of the canvas to achieve more vivid tones.

  The three pictures, which are here reproduced, are unusually representative of the artist’s work. The lithograph was done while he was yet at the Chicago Art Institute. The landscape shows him after the shift in his interest. Unavoidably the rather vivid coloring is lost. In the case of the immediate foreground, the picture is possibly benefitted. The ground here is rather profusely strewn with flowers, whose brightness seems somewhat to detract from the composition as a whole. But the rest of the work, of course, suffers badly from the loss.

  To many persons, however, the portrait in oils is the most interesting of the three productions. It is at once evident that the artist has succeeded in going behind the facts of immediate physical appearance. In other words, this is a portrait, not an ordinary picture. The work is as yet unfinished. The dress will probably be changed, the high lights are lacking in the hair – but these are details which do not detract particularly from the photographic reproduction. The point is that with all his interest in color, Hotvedt has not lost his feeling for form and dramatic effect. It must be obvious, even to the most casual observer, that he has studied character before starting the portrait.

  “The portraitist has a great advantage here over the ordinary photographer,” Hotvedt pointed out. “He must of necessity work for hours with the person posing for him. Most people are self-conscious. They are stiff and affected, when anyone starts to make their picture. Perhaps only once or twice during the entire sitting do they become natural. It is the business of the portraitist to seize upon these rare moments and transfer the expression to the canvas. The photographer is handicapped by the shortness of time in which he deals with the model. But even the portrait painter must be on the alert and forever attempting to discover the salient points of the personality before him.”

 Three R’s of an Art Education Stressed In Evening Art Class

(From 1930. Permission to reprint by The Wichita Eagle.)  

  Sketching from life, painting portraits in oil, still life studies in water colors, and creating charcoal studies with varying contrasts of deepest black to pure white – these constitute the activities of the evening art class which meets twice each week in a studio room in the Butte Building for 7 to 8 months a year under the auspices of the Wichita Art Association.

  The art students who are serious enough about it to devote their evening hours to the endeavor – they represent young students who someday plan to wrest a livelihood from art, talented amateurs who attend only for the resulting pleasure, and other persons who have had some training in art and come to keep in practice. It is altogether a very interesting process, says Clarence Hotvedt, the class instructor.  

“This makes the fourth year that the Art Association has conducted this class,” Mr. Hotvedt said to a Beacon reporter. “Thru our studies and drawings we lay a foundation for an art education similar to that which is secured in many eastern art institute’s. Many of the talented students attending here for a period go to the larger art schools and find that they can go right on with their studies.”

  “Unusual opportunity is offered here for another type of student,”  he confirmed. “Some come here thinking they have artistic talent, when they really haven’t. But they come and find themselves, so as to speak, and thus save the large sums which they would spend in eastern art schools in a fruitless undertaking. The older persons in the class get a real ‘kick’ out of the studies.”

  “Sketching from life will be the class schedule from now until January 1, after that it will be painting faces, and portraits and then still life studies in water colors and charcoal. Still life, oil painting and water color are the three r’s in an art education.”

  Average attendance in the class is 20; now there are more than 25 enrolled. The class meets from 7:15 until 9:15 p.m. Tuesday and Friday evenings.

A rare Prairie Printmaker sighting

Highlights about three dozen rarely viewed works of art by Clarence Hotvedt, one of the charter members of the esteemed Prairie Printmakers, will be part of an exhibition opening Friday at Artworks gallery.

By Joanna Ramondetta - September 22, 2010

About three dozen rarely viewed works of art by Clarence Hotvedt, one of the charter members of the esteemed Prairie Printmakers, will be part of an exhibition opening Friday at Artworks gallery.

"Prairie Printmaker Clarence Hotvedt and Friends" also will include works by Hershel C. Logan, C.A. Seward, Leo Courtney, Lloyd Foltz and Birger Sandzen, who also were members of the famous group.

 The group was begun in 1930 in Lindsborg by Seward, who hoped to ignite a revival in printmaking. It was by his invitation that the other 10 artists joined and formed the charter group. Over the years, the group grew to include nearly 100 artists from across the country.

Reuben Saunders, who owns Artworks, said the exhibition gives art enthusiasts a rare chance to see Hotvedt's prints.

"What is really fun about Hotvedt's work is that it is quite hard to find," he said. "He only made about 40 prints during his career and usually made editions of 50 or less, and then he traded them with other artists. Some of these prints may have never been seen before by collectors because they have never been out on the market."

The pieces in the exhibition include 33 of Hotvedt's prints as well as some of his oils and watercolors. 

Saunders noted that Hotvedt made his way to Wichita by pure fate. Originally from Wisconsin, he went to school in Chicago and graduated from the Chicago Art Institute in 1923. After a lengthy time looking for work, Hotvedt ran into a former schoolmate on a street corner in Chicago named Ed Kopeitz, who was from Wichita.

Kopeitz told Hotvedt that he should talk to his friend, C.A. Seward of Wichita, who was art director of Western Lithograph and was looking to hire.

"Seward hired Hotvedt and thus began their long association and Hotvedt's first connection to what would be the renowned Prairie Printmakers," Saunders said.

If you go:

'Prairie Printmaker Clarence Hotvedt and Friends'

What: Exhibit of prints and other works by members of the Prairie Printmakers

Where: Artworks Gallery, Piccadilly Square, Central and Rock Road

When: 6-8 p.m. Friday