I was re-introduced to the American artist, Franz Kline, during a recent presentation by Eric Muller-Gerard, a Montview member and working artist. I am so happy to share Kline and his Bethlehem with you. This work is as enigmatic as the artist himself. If you are thinking first of Bethlehem in the Holy Land, please add a second thought of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the state of Kline’s birth to an English mother and a German father. Kline created as a member of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism. His work is called gestural abstraction and he is referred to as an action painter using a house painter’s brush for his elusive images. This work is in the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum in Missouri.

 

Franz Kline began as a printmaker following the values of this medium throughout his career. His work might bring the “that looks easy and spontaneous” illusions to mind for many of us when in reality Kline probably found this image on a thousandth try of concentration and spirit. It can be so easy to discount abstraction as less valuable or skillful than representational art when the opposite is more likely true.

 

Franz Kline painted within the tension between the certainty of the materialistic American culture and the elusive nature of image and beauty. His art seems to mediate the two as a challenge to each of us.

 

Artists through the ages have pressed the limits of our awareness and vision. That sounds like a faith journey to me. And you?

 

In gratitude, faith and hope,

 

Sandy Prouty