Composition No. 27

1944

American, 1876-1965

Maude Kerns was a beloved teacher of art education at the University of Oregon, Eugene, for twenty-five years, until her retirement in 1947. But in the last decade of her teaching, she was also the rare champion among West Coast artists of a mathematical-based abstraction. Kerns regarded her compositions -- derived from shapes and grids -- as the equivalent of music, comparing its underlying structure and its appeal to the intellect and the emotions by sound and rhythm alone. She believed that abstract design was the true equivalent of the order of the universe and that in working purely with form and pattern -- ignoring what we perceive in the visible world -- creativity was unlocked.

-- Patricia Junker, Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art

Oil on canvas

36 x 24 in. (91.44 x 60.96 cm)

Overall h.: 41 1/4 in.

Overall w.: 29 1/4 in.

Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection

46.98

Provenance: The artist; purchased for $225 from Seattle Art Museum solo exhibition, 1946

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Seattle Art Museum, Paintings by Maude I. Kerns, May 8-June 2, 1946. Checklist no. 15 [lent by the artist].

Seattle, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Art of the Thirties: The Pacific Northwest, April 1-30, 1972 (Portland, Oregon, Portland Art Museum, May 24-June 25, 1972). Text by Martha Kingsbury. Catalogue no. 18, reproduced p. 45.

Eugene, Oregon, Kerns Art Center, “Who in the World Was Maude Kerns?”, August 12-October 2, 1988. No catalogue no., reproduced p. 27 [image is incorrectly oriented horizontally].

Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, Views and Visions in the Pacific Northwest, June 7 - September 2, 1990. No catalogue.

Seattle, Seattle Art Museum. Northwest Women Artists 1920-1950: Selections from the Permanent Collection, 1993. No catalogue.

Los Angeles, California, Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945, October 14, 1995-January 28, 1996 (Tulsa, Oklahoma, Gilcrease Museum, March 2-May 2, 1996; Santa Fe, New Mexico, Museum of Fine Arts, June 29-Septemebr 29, 1996; Provo, Utah, Museum of Art, Brigham Young University, October 26, 1996-January 19, 1997). Catalogue no. 125, pp. 126, 128, 296, reproduced p. 129.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Elles: SAM - Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists, October 06, 2012 - February 17, 2013

Published ReferencesDenison, Paul. “Kerns Art Center to Honor its Namesake,” Eugene, Oregon, Register-Guard, August 12, 1988: p. 3D, reproduced.

McAllister, Lynn. “Stirrings of Modernism in the Northwest,” in Laura Brunsman and Ruth Askey, eds. Modernism and Beyond: Women Artists of the Pacific Northwest (New York: Midmarch Press, 1993), reproduced p. 11.

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