Art in the McMorran House
Selections from the University of Oregon’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art
Front Entry
Alfred H. Maurer Alfred Maurer was an ever-evolving painter, whose style ranged from Realism to Fauvism, Expressionism, and Cubism over a forty-year period. The New York-born artist studied in Paris at the turn of the century and originally painted in a more conventional style akin to James McNeill Whistler (American, 1834-1903). He returned to Manhattan at the start of the First World War. Although he was a member of avant-garde circles alongside other American modernists and art collectors Gertrude and Leo Stein, Maurer never reached the same level of recognition in his lifetime as his friends John Marin (1870-1953) and Marsden Hartley (1877-1943). A later exhibition catalog from the Whitney Museum of American Art quoted the artist: “My main concern in painting is the beautiful arrangement of color values—that is, harmonized masses of pigment, more or less pure. For this reason, it is impossible to present an exact transcription of nature... It is necessary for art to differ from nature.”
Alfred H. Maurer (American, 1868-1932). Bridge Landscape, 1923. Oil on canvas. Gift of the Friends of the Museum
Maude I. Kerns After completing her studies at the Teachers College of Columbia University in 1906, Oregon-born painter and printmaker Maude Kerns taught high school in Seattle and spent one year studying modern art in Europe. She accepted the position as head of the newly created Department of Art at the University of Oregon in 1921. She traveled to China, Egypt, Europe, India, Israel, Japan, and the Philippines later that decade. While in Japan, Kerns stayed with her close friend Gertrude Bass Warner (1863–1951), the founder of the University of Oregon Museum of Art (now the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art), and studied traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking and tempera painting. Upon her return to the United States, several of the works she made during her travels were displayed at the University of Oregon’s Gerlinger Hall and at the Portland Art Museum. She continued to paint in a representational manner until the early 1930s but is now best known for her later nonobjective art.
Maude I. Kerns (American, 1876-1965). Composition #112, n.d. Oil on canvas. Gift of the Maude I. Kerns Estate
Library
Charles Voorhies (American, 1901-70). Foothills, 1955. Oil on composition board. Virginia Haseltine Collection of Pacific Northwest Art
Charles Voorhies Charles Voorhies was born and raised in Portland and originally studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and University of California, Berkeley. Following three months of work for the famed Mexican painter Diego Rivera on the artist’s first fresco mural in the United States, The Allegory of California at the San Francisco Stock Exchange (now the City Club of San Francisco), Voorhies turned more seriously to his own art. His studies under Maurice Sterne (American, born Latvia, 1877/8-1957) at the California School of Fine Arts and in New York City introduced him to a wide range of artistic influences. Following travels through Europe and Mexico in the 1930s, Voorhies returned to Oregon and took a teaching position at the Museum Art School (now Pacific Northwest College of Art). Many of his works in the 1950s featured evocative scenes of the Willamette Valley made with a darker palette.
Dining Room
Janette K. Hopper UO alum Janette Hopper (MFA, Painting) is a retired Art Professor and former Chair of the Art Department at University of North Carolina Pembroke and the recipient of two Fulbright grants from the United States and Denmark. View from Mt. Pisgah looks south from the highest point of this Lane County Park. It is a particularly strong example of Hopper’s approach to addressing skies and natural light, as well as representing expansive scale. In her artist statement, she explains, “My works are inspired by the special places I have experienced while hiking, camping, and kayaking. I have explored beaches, mountains, black water swamps, creeks, fields, and visited many unique beautiful places. The outdoors long has enchanted me and inspired my art. I have learned how significant fire is to the land, water to the swamps and marshes and the interrelation of all these elements to the animals and plants we call nature.”
Janette K. Hopper (American, born 1946). View from Mt. Pisgah, 1985. Oil on linen. Gift of Janette K Hopper
David McCosh For University of Oregon faculty member David McCosh, the opportunities to visit new places brought welcome challenges for his art making. McCosh took sabbaticals from his teaching position in the Department of Art in 1949 to visit Cohasset Beach, Washington, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and New Mexico; in 1958 to visit England, France, Italy, Morocco, and Spain; and in 1965 to return to New Mexico and Mexico, this time also visiting Mexico City and the Yucatan. On each of these trips, he found new visual stimuli for his art. Following his death in 1981, the artist’s widow, Anne Kutka McCosh (1902–94), generously arranged for a large endowment of McCosh’s art, archival materials, and personal belongings to be gifted to the University of Oregon. As the caretaker of the David John McCosh Memorial Collection and Archive, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is home to the largest body of works by and relating to McCosh.
David McCosh (American, 1903–81). Flowers with Red Book, n.d. Oil on canvas. David John McCosh Memorial Collection; Gift of Anne Kutka McCosh
Vernon Witham (American, 1925-2010). Under the Pier, before 1963. Oil on Masonite. Virginia Haseltine Collection of Pacific Northwest Art
Vernon Witham Vernon Witham was born and raised in Eugene. He credited three transformative experiences during his teenage years as the inspiration for pursuing a career in art: he painted a mural in his high school, visited the traveling Modern Mexican Artists exhibition when it came to Portland, and was introduced to the work of American painter Jack Wilkinson (191374). Witham enrolled at the University of
Oregon, where Wilkinson was faculty, in 1943. Following Army service, travel to Mexico, and study at the California School of Fine Arts, he eventually returned to Oregon and then settled permanently in Santa Fe in 1988. Witham loved experimentation and was remarkably prolific across a wide variety of styles. His former UO classmate, director James Ivory, featured Witham’s cubist-style paintings in his 1996 film Surviving Picasso.
Craig Cheshire (American, born 1936). John Day Country, 2010. Oil on linen. Gift of Craig Cheshire
Craig Cheshire Located in a remote area of eastern Oregon, John Day is known for its stunning geological formations and rural farmland. Portland painter Craig Cheshire’s rendering of the high desert cliffs and scrubby vegetation reflects the influence of his teacher and mentor, David McCosh (1903-81), with whom he studied at
the University of Oregon in the late 1950s and early ’60s. In previous writings, Cheshire noted that landscapes are particularly challenging to represent in line drawings. Instead, he prefers what McCosh called “descriptive drawing” or the use of color to create form and structure. This technique is evident in the way Cheshire constructed the staggered hillside using swaths of ochre, pale green, violet, and indigo.
Charles E. Heaney (American, 1897–1981). Silver Camp [Early Spring],1960. Oil on canvas. Virginia Haseltine Collection of Pacific Northwest Art
Charles E. Heaney Charles Heaney and his family moved from Wisconsin to Oregon by railroad in 1913. In 1917, Heaney began taking classes at the Portland Museum Art School (now the Pacific Northwest College of Art), where instructor Henry Wentz (1875–1965) and fellow student Kyuzo Furuya (1888–1929) encouraged him to pursue a career as an artist. However, the most influential figure in his artistic life was his friend and mentor C.S. Price (1874–1950), whose
dedication to painting impressed the younger artist. From 1929 to 1932, Heaney had a job installing highway signs for the Oregon State Motor Association, which required him to travel throughout the state. The artist documented these trips through sketches to which he later referred while painting in his studio. Clusters of modest homes and commercial businesses were a signature theme in his work. Although Portland was his permanent home, eastern Oregon remained a major source of inspiration in his artwork.
Living Room
Carl Morris Carl Morris was born in Yorba Linda, California and showed an early aptitude for artistic expression. Upon seeing Mexican artist José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949) at work on his fresco mural Prometheus at Pomona College in 1930, Morris was convinced to pursue painting. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1931-1933 before receiving fellowship money to paint in France and Austria. After his return to the United States, Morris was hired as Director of the new Spokane Arts Center and was a Public Works of Art Project commission for two murals to be installed in the Eugene Post Office was awarded to Morris the following year. This significant achievement convinced the Morrises to settle permanently in Portland (though both maintained ties to their artistic circles in New York City). Land, Sea, and Sky was painted a few years before Morris’s commission to create nine large murals for the Oregon Centennial Exposition and International Trade Fair in Portland (1959). That major series, titled The History of Religions, is also in the permanent collection of the JSMA.
Carl Morris (American, 1911-93). Land, Sea and Sky, 1956. Oil on canvas. Virginia Haseltine Collection of Pacific Northwest Art
Otto S. Fried (American, born Germany, 1922-2020). Marsh, 1964. Oil on canvas. From the Estate of George W. Friede
Otto S. Fried Otto Fried was born in Koblenz, Germany, and in 1936 his parents sent him to live with relatives in Portland, Oregon, to escape rising anti-Semitism. He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II and then used the GI Bill to attend Oregon State College and the University of Oregon. UO Art Professor Jack Wilkinson (1913-74) recognized his student’s
impressive talent. He arranged for Fried to work in the Parisian atelier of Cubist painter Fernand Léger (French, 1881-1955), under whom Wilkinson had also studied, after graduation. Fried later declined a teaching position in Oregon to focus on making his career in New York and Paris. However, the natural splendor of his adopted home state inspired his work for decades.
Jack McLarty (American, 1919-2011). The War Years, 1945. Oil on canvas. Virginia Haseltine Collection of Pacific Northwest Art
Jack McLarty Born in Seattle, painter, printmaker, and teacher William James (Jack) McLarty spent most of his life in Portland. Following his education at the Museum Art School (now Pacific Northwest College of Art), McLarty spent two years living in New York City. He returned to Oregon in 1942 and quickly established himself as one of the major forces in the regional arts and culture scene. While an instructor at the
Museum Art School (1948-81) and co-founder of the Image Gallery (1961-86), McLarty also exhibited his own work widely in exhibitions both in and outside of the state. He is known for his surrealist approach to the figure (usually depicted in dreamscapes or imagined geographies), bright palette, and active social conscience. His imagery, which ranges from futuristic machinery and architecture to fantastic animals, acknowledges the complexities of life and that things may not always be as they seem.
Stewart Hall Holbrook (Mr. Otis) Portland-based writer and public historian Stewart Hall Holbrook invented the persona of oil painter “Mr. Otis” in the 1940s in response to the general pretentiousness that he claimed was pervasive in modern art. Although Holbrook never publicly admitted that Mr. Otis’s paintings were made by his hand, he spoke openly about the mysterious artist’s work and described his style as the “Primitive-Moderne School.” Playful titles, whimsical characters, and bold colors figured prominently in this body of work. Mr. Otis continued to produce paintings that celebrated, and poked fun at, Portland characters in daily life until the 1960s.
Stewart Hall Holbrook (Mr. Otis) (American, 1893-1964). The World of Mr. Otis #7 (The Man is Here About the Wallpaper), 1949. Oil on unprimed canvas. Gift of the Daughters of Stewart Holbrook
Robert Feasley (American, 1926-2013). Mediterranean Blue,1970. Oil on canvas. Gift of Mr. Tom Hardy
Robert Feasley University of Oregon graduate Robert Feasley (MFA, 1951) taught in the Department of Fine Arts at Washington State University from 1958 to 1988. He traveled frequently to Europe, and the Mediterranean region was a favorite subject for his paintings. Feasley’s colorful interpretations of the places he visited reflect his imaginative style and sense of whimsy.
Although well known for his landscapes, he was equally skilled at representing the human figure and architectural features. This painting was included in a major gift from Portland sculptor and University of Oregon graduate Tom Hardy (American, 1921-2016), who generously gave 100 works by notable Oregon artists from his personal collection to the museum between 1973 and 1983.
Margaret Coe (American, born 1941). La Plage Bonaparte #1, 2008. Oil on canvas. Museum Purchase
Margaret Coe Margaret Coe received her MFA from the University of Oregon in 1978. As a student, she was inspired by the work of her instructors, David McCosh (1903-81), Andrew Vincent (1898–1993), and Frank Okada (1931–2000). She also cites modernist painters C.S. Price (1874–1950) and Charles Heaney (1897–1981) as important influences. Coe has taught at the University of Oregon, Lane Community College, and the Maude Kerns Art Center. During the 2000s she made annual summer painting trips to France. Her subject matter for La Plage Bonaparte #1 is a small, secluded beach on the Normandy Coast, the site of the secret rescue of 135 American and Canadian airmen who had been shot down by German fighters in World War II. Coe made studies on site and completed this painting upon her return to her studio in Eugene. In her broader body of work, one can also see her explorations of the familiar landscape of the Pacific Northwest, with equal attention paid to natural and manmade features.
The McMorran House The McMorran House was built for George McMorran in 1925 during a time when Eugene was experiencing its largest building and population boom, in accordance with the designs of a respected architect and landscape architect. Roscoe D. Hemenway, a UO graduate and an acclaimed Portland architect known for his period revival style residential work, designed the McMorran House. The expansive gardens are likely the work of George H. Otten, another UO graduate and well-known Oregon landscape architect. George McMorran was a man who greatly influenced the commercial life of Eugene and was also deeply involved in the organization and life of the community. He sold the house to the University of Oregon in 1941. Every resident thereafter has been a president of the University of Oregon and, therefore, has had a profound impact on the university.
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art The only academic art museum in Oregon accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the University of Oregon’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA) features engaging exhibitions, significant collections of historic and contemporary art, and exciting educational programs that support the university’s academic mission and the diverse interests of its off-campus communities. The JSMA’s collections galleries present selections from its extensive holdings of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and American art. Special exhibitions galleries display works from the collection and on loan, representing many cultures of the world, past and present. The JSMA continues a long tradition of bridging international cultures and offers a welcoming destination for discovery and education centered on artistic expression that deepens the appreciation and understanding of the human condition.
Scan for a digital version of this publication or visit: https://bit.ly/McMorran The University of Oregon is located on Kalapuya Ilihi, the traditional indigenous homeland of the Kalapuya people. An equal-opportunity, affirmative-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.