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Past Exhibitions Current Exhibitions Back to Exhibitions )
Charles Umlauf. Pieta, c. 1948. Cast bronze, 15 x 18 1/2 x 11 inches.
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Father & Son III Charles & Karl Umlauf April 13–May 25, 2008  Karl Umlauf. The Cement Factory, 1959. Oil on linen, 18 x 24 in. Two generations of Texas art icons share the spotlight as the Tyler Museum of Art unveils its latest exhibition, Father & Son III: Charles & Karl Umlauf. The exhibition, the latest installment in the TMA's semi-annual series celebrating the works of parents and their children in the art world, opens to the public Sunday, April 13 and continues through May 25 in the Museum's Bell Gallery. Father & Son III is among the first exhibitions in the U.S. to showcase the early contributions of the late Charles Umlauf, namesake of the Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum in Austin, alongside the seminal works of his son Karl Umlauf, an artist-in-residence at Baylor University who has emerged as one of the nation's most accomplished and prolific artists in a career spanning more than four decades. "This exhibition represents a rare opportunity for a look back at how two great artists began their respective journeys," TMA Director Kimberley Bush Tomio said. "From the 1940s, when Charles emerged as one of the country's premier sculptors, all the way into the new millennium, where Karl continues to produce works of bold expression and uncompromising beauty, the Umlauf name has been a standard-bearer for the Texas artist – and that reputation has grown to international levels." Charles Umlauf was born in South Haven, Michigan, in 1911. Receiving his training at the Chicago School of Sculpture and the Chicago Art Institute, his early experience as a working artist would encompass jobs for the Federal Art Project in Chicago, for which Umlauf would render sculpture commissions for public buildings. Though his youth was spent in the Midwest, he soon would cement his reputation as one of the leading "Texas artists" after moving with his family to Austin in 1941, where Umlauf joined the new art department at the University of Texas as a sculpture instructor. Simultaneous with his 40-year teaching career (retiring as professor emeritus in 1981), the elder Umlauf would produce and exhibit a diverse array of work – ranging in style from expressionism to lyrical abstraction, across a broad spectrum of media – at a prolific clip until his death in 1994. During his career, the elder Umlauf received virtually every professional award, including both a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Ford Foundation Grant. In Texas, he was honored in 1985 by the Houston Art League as "Texas Artist of the Year" and in 1993 by the city of San Antonio as "Alcalde." His work can be seen in public collections and museums across the U.S., including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. More of his sculptures are in public placements in Texas than work by any other single sculptor. Karl Umlauf, born in 1939 while his father was still working in Chicago, was a transplanted Texan by age 2. Though his mother, Angeline, also was an artist, and Charles had begun to receive considerable acclaim by the time Karl was a teenager, his father had actively attempted to dissuade him from pursuing a career in art. Karl reminisces today, "And I cautiously enjoyed the music career I was pursuing and felt it was going to be my life's career." But Karl discovered after close to a decade in music that his creative energies guided him toward visual arts, inspired by working as his father's assistant on casting sites and installations in the U.S. and Italy as a child. Though Karl never took a formal art course with his father, he did study with several of the elder Umlauf's colleagues and contemporaries, first at the Summer School of Music and Art at Yale University, and later at the University of Texas at Austin, where the younger Umlauf received his B.F.A. degree in 1961. By the time he graduated Cornell University with an M.F.A. in 1963, Karl Umlauf already had been featured in group exhibitions and received several accolades – including a Purchase Prize from the Tyler Art Center, precursor to the Tyler Museum of Art, which later would showcase his work during a 1983 solo exhibition. Since he began producing his own work in the 1950s, Karl Umlauf has enjoyed a career as complex and diverse as any working artist of his time, moving from representational forms to abstraction, in media ranging from charcoal and ink to oil and fiberglass – encompassing subject matter as varied as his technique. "It's not the subject matter; it's how the artist handles it," he said. "The technique is the message. I've always told my students, 'It's not what you paint; it's how you paint it.'" Like his father, Karl Umlauf has balanced his artwork with a teaching career, serving stints as art instructor at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Northern Iowa – and leaving a lasting impression on an entire generation of emerging Texas artists as professor of art at Texas A&M University - Commerce (formerly East Texas State University) from 1967-89. He also has served as artist-in-residence at Indiana University and at Baylor University in Waco, a position he has held since 1989. Among the dozens of permanent and public collections featuring Karl Umlauf's work are the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Modern Museum of Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin, Longview Museum of Fine Arts, the University of Texas at Tyler, and the Tyler Museum of Art. Father & Son III: Charles & Karl Umlauf, organized by the Tyler Museum of Art, is on exhibit during regular Museum hours of 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 1–5 p.m. Sunday (the TMA is closed on Mondays and major holidays). Admission is free. Exhibition sponsors are Hibbs-Hallmark & Company and Gallery 2 David Dike Fine Art & Estates. The Tyler Museum of Art is located at 1300 S. Mahon Ave., adjacent to the Tyler Junior College campus off East Fifth Street. The Museum Café is open for light lunch from 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and the TMA Gift Shop is available for purchases during exhibition hours. For more information, call 903-595-1001. |