WIBW.com – The Mulvane Art Museum was recently contacted by the Art in Embassies program of the U. S. State Department to lend several large paintings to the American Embassy in Moscow. The current ambassador to Russia, John F. Tefft, is originally from Wisconsin, and he requested landscape paintings that depicted the Midwest and the West. Tefft selected the following works from the Mulvane’s collection:

Born in Elmira, NY, in 1930, Joan Foth graduated from Barnard College with a degree in art history and Oriental studies. She moved to Topeka in 1953 and taught life drawing and watercolor at Washburn University from 1958 to 1983. While Foth loved to paint the Kansas landscape, she also painted mountains in Wyoming and the Sangre de Christos and Jemez mountains of northern New Mexico. The exceptionally wide and narrow format of this work effectively communicates the horizontal expansiveness of the scene.
After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Washburn University in Topeka, KS, in 1968, Jerry Gaddis made his home in Topeka. He specializes in painting the landscape of his home state. This work depicts an ice floe in the Wakarusa River, which runs south of Topeka.
Born in Rideway, KS, in 1870, Hodge moved to Topeka with her family as small child. She studied with painting with a number of artists, including George M. Stone in Topeka. She made her living as a portrait photographer, but in the summers she travelled widely particularly in the American West, seeking landscape subjects for her paintings. This painting depicts the Sawtooth Mountain Range near Stanley, Idaho.

Raised on a farm near Goodland, KS, Cally Krallman graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Washburn Univerisity in 1981. She has resided in Topeka since that time. Krallman works “en plein air,” or outside in front of her subject. She never tires of the Kansas landscape: “Many people think of Kansas as just a flat agricultural state, but in fact it is full of wonderful hills, tree lined rivers and creeks, and other unique land formations. The sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking and calming at the same time.”
Born and raised in Lithuania, Bea Opelka moved to the United States at age twelve in 1949. She moved to Prairie Village, KS in the early 1970s. Her paintings, including her landscapes of Kansas, reflect her love of nature and its myriad subtle, changing relationships. About Midwestern landscape, Opelka wrote, it “appears real to me … I am fascinated by its earthiness. Mud, dirt, weed and grasses are unpretentious, yet infinitely beautiful … When all else is in turmoil, there is a peacefulness out there that helps put everything into perspective.”

The previous is an excerpt from an article by Ralph Hipp. For the full article see: http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/Mulvane-Art-Museum-Loans-6-Paintings-To-US-Embassy-in-Moscow-301772941.html