Moseman's 'Paintings of My People' at Great Plains Art Collection
Released on 01/07/2004, at 12:00 AM
Office of University Communications
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Moseman is a native of Oakland, Neb., and his summer home and studio is in David City. Inspired by his family and growing up on a farm in the 1940s through the 1960s, Moseman said he feels "compelled by the farm crisis of recent decades to create paintings about my people and our culture heritage."
"Seeing the farmer as an endangered species, I try to capture the spirit of a vanishing people at one with the land," he said. "I paint to honor my parents and their comrades, and to keep their spirit alive in all of us."
The exhibition's opening reception is from 2-4 p.m. Jan. 17 at the Great Plains Art Collection, 1155 Q St., with an artist's talk by Moseman at 3 p.m. The first 100 visitors at the opening will receive a free exhibit catalog. Included in the exhibition are poetry responses by Tim Anderson, a University of Nebraska graduate and an editor at the New York Times. Anderson attended the same country school as Moseman. The exhibition and opening reception are free and open to the public.
Moseman was born in 1945 and attended a one-room school, eventually earning a bachelor of architecture degree at Nebraska and a master's degree at Syracuse University. After his parents' farm was lost during the 1980s farm crisis, he gave up his career to paint full-time, focusing on the American farmer. He has since won more than 30 awards in more than 50 exhibitions across the country, including the Butler Institute of American Art, and his works are shown internationally and in permanent collections at museums and in corporate collections such as Sprint. American Artist featured his work in a special issue of "Realism Today" and called it a "lasting record of the most significant work created by realist artists at the beginning of the 21st century."
Visit the Great Plains Art Collection Web site for more information. Museum hours are Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 1:30-5 p.m.
A color JPEG image of Mark Moseman's "Summer Salute" can be viewed at this link.
CONTACT: Reece Summers, Curator, Great Plains Art Collection, (402) 472-6220