ISSUE 14 // 9.11.2023

Joseph Friebert (1908–2002), City Patterns, oil on Masonite, 24 x 36 inches, c. 1955

WHAT’S NEW?

Afterglow

If you’ve been craving fall colors, you won’t have to wait much longer to see them. Today marks the opening of Joseph Friebert: The Experimental Years at Madron, an exhibit that delves into the quietly sublime semi-abstractions of Milwaukee artist Joseph Friebert (1908–2002). In worlds of rusted orange and red undertones with forms that evoke Roman ruins and Gothic cathedrals, for more than two decades Friebert paired the disparate influences of Rembrandt and Abstract Expressionism while cultivating a path entirely his own. The Experimental Years runs through December 22 and is accompanied by a new essay by Alex Cornacchia. Get here early to make sure you snag a copy in print, then join us for a reception (replete with food, booze, and music, naturally) on November 2 from 6–9PM (in conjunction with Lincoln Park Art Night).

WHAT’S NEXT?

Talk of the Town

Madron doesn’t always have a dedicated talk to go with our exhibits, so when we do, you know it’s gonna be special. On October 14 at 2PM, art historian and professor emirita Sue Taylor, PhD (check out her books on Hans Bellmer and Grant Wood) will be joining us all the way from Portland, Oregon for a discussion on Joseph Friebert, postwar art in the United States, and engendering empathy through abstraction. Taylor’s expertise is inflected by having personally known the artist (!), making this lecture that rare and wonderful meeting point of academic incisiveness and emotional depth. We doubt you’ll see Friebert’s semi-abstractions the same way after this, so be sure to mark your calendars.

WHAT’S THIS BELOW?

Old Bay

Among the artists of the Cape Ann colony (that northern bit of Massachusetts that juts into the Atlantic), Carl William Peters was known as the one with the unusually vibrant colors (the waters off the Massachusetts coast aren’t exactly known for their turquoise hues, after all). And in the years following WWII, as that area was undergoing major changes, Peters’s palettes just turned ever brighter. If you were to look out of frame and out to sea from the main scene of Bay View with Fisherman, you’d find diesel-fueled stern trawlers roaming the offshore waters, causing international disputes over territory, sustainability, and fishing commercialization along the Atlantic coast. Highway 128, linking Gloucester to the rest of the state, was newly expanded in the early 1950s, making the little fishing villages of Cape Ann suddenly worlds more accessible to out-of-towners. In downtown Rockport, beside white church steeples and Cape Cod homes, a Dunkin’ Donuts materialized in 1950. None of this makes its way into Bay View with Fisherman. Instead, Peters gives us the quaint New England coastal town of the collective conscience: dinghies and sailboats and an altogether slower pace, firmly rooted in an old way of life.