Reflections on Light and Influence

By Sean Ulmer, Executive Director, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art

Fred Easker tells the story of going to junior high school and seeing Grant Wood’s Young Corn, an iconic painting of Wood’s post-1930 mature style. While not considering a life as a landscape painter at the time, Easker nonetheless acknowledges how seeing that painting nearly every day had an influence on him. While there are visual relationships between these two premier Iowa artists, there is also a philosophical one. Wood is purported to have famously said, “I had to go to France to appreciate Iowa.” Easker said, “I discovered how important the Iowa landscape is for me personally. In 1990, I began to explore the landscape as a subject for new paintings, a direction I would not have predicted.” Additionally, Easker stated,“I am connected to the area and to the places painted.I worked to develop a personal response to this familiar environment and I continue to savor its subtle visual richness.” In both cases, the artists recognized the extraordinary beauty in the landscape they grew up with, that they knew on an intimate level, without previously recognizing how embedded it was in their psyche.

But Easker is no Grant Wood wannabe. His work also reflects his knowledge of many other great artists: Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Joseph Raphael, and Giorgio Morandi. Easker particularly singles out the mid-19th century paintings of the Hudson River School artists and the Luminists. In Easker’s hands, he combines the majesty of the Hudson River School paintings with the smooth brushstrokes and interest in the effects of light upon the landscape of the Luminists. Easker strikes a delicate balance between the drama of the former and the tranquility of the latter. It is Easker’s fascination with light, and its effects on the landscape, that link him most to the Luminists. But with Easker, light is only the start. It is the light, when integrated into the landscape, that makes his compositions come to life.