Collection Highlights

August 2010

This artist has spent a long and prolific career translating her life experiences into stone, metal and wood. Sunderland studied at Bradley University, and began working in the 1950s when women generally were excluded from the field of sculpture, in part because they were considered too weak to wield the heavy materials and tools used by stone and metal workers. But Sunderland has always participated in the fabrication and installation of her works.

The human form serves as the underlying structure for the arrangement of abstract forms in Sunderland's works. A trip to England in 1964 sparked Sunderland's fascination with the medieval reclining effigy figures of royal and noble persons in many English cathedrals. She places her figures upright and eliminates any sense of grief. In the 1970s she began moving the majestic yet poetic figures into architectural environments to create serene tableaux.

Ruins I and related works created in the 1990s combine broken stone columns with dark, bronze figures, creating a serene tableau of classical ruins. This sculpture is permanently installed on a patio near the Museum entrance. An earlier work, People, is attached to the building and reflects Sunderland’s style of the 1960s.

Sunderland is Professor Emeritus of Art at Bradley University. Still active as an artist, Sunderland owns a sculpture restoration business, and has worked on several major historical works in the city of Peoria and throughout Illinois.

Nita Sunderland

Washington, IL; born 1927

Ruins I, 1995

stone, bronze

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. George Kottemann 1997.44

July 2010

Coverlets are woven bedcovers with roots in Europe. Both decorative and warm, they display the weaver's skill and have great aesthetic appeal to collectors today. Complex figural designs such as we see on this coverlet were difficult to produce without a Jacquard attachment, invented in 1806 by Joseph Marie Jacquard of France. The attachment used a series of punched cards that guided the raising and lowering of the warp (lengthwise) threads during the weaving process. Many Jacquard coverlet weavers—all men—signed and dated their textiles on the decorative corner blocks at the bottom corners.

Jacquard weavers used patterns and motifs derived from well-known folk traditions of Western Europe, especially Germany. Floral motifs appeared most frequently; star and sunburst designs were also common.

The earliest American jacquard coverlets were woven in New York and Pennsylvania in the late 1820s. As coverlets saturated the market in the Eastern states, and as mechanization shifted weaving into factory settings, the weavers moved westward into Ohio and Indiana, and eventually to Illinois, looking for new markets. They settled in or near agrarian communities with sizeable Germanic populations.

All 18 weavers who produced figured and fancy Jacquard coverlets in Illinois between 1841 and 1871 are represented by the 43 examples in the Lakeview Museum collection. Most of them wove coverlets to order during the winter months when farming activities slowed down, although a few worked at their looms year-round as their primary occupation.

Six of the weavers were active in or near Peoria between 1846 and 1860. Christian Wagner (1820-1868) and August Braten (circa 1808-1900) wove this example in Pekin, Illinois in 1849. Braten appears to have been an apprentice, who took the teacher’s loom and pattern cards with him when he moved to Urbana, Illinois in 1850. This is one of only two Illinois coverlets with buildings on a border, and Wagner wove both of them.

Christian Wagner and August Braten

Pekin, IL

coverlet, 1849

wool and cotton

Gift of Merle and Barbara Glick 1995.2.11

June 2010

Schomer Lichtner (1905-2006) and his wife, Ruth Grotenrath, enjoyed long careers as artists in the Milwaukee area. Each studied under artists who enjoyed classical training in Munich in the late 19th century.

The early work of Lichtner and his wife, which includes Post Office murals created under the US Treasury Department’s Section of Fine Arts, reflect the influence of Thomas Hart Benton and other Midwest Regionalists as well as Mexican Social Realists such as Diego Rivera. Color became increasingly important for both of them in the 1940s.

Both Lichtner and Grotenrath responded strongly to the work of modernist artist Henri Matisse. Lichtner created dozens of prints and drawings beginning in the 1960s that feature ballerinas and/or Holstein cows. These are reminiscent of the famous colorful cut-outs from Matisse’s later years.

Lichtner was the “official” artist of the Milwaukee Ballet Company. He was a native of Peoria, IL.

Schomer Lichtner

American, 1905-2006

untitled, mid-20th century

serigraph

Gift of the Schomer Lichtner Trust and Kohler Foundation, Inc. 2009.165

May 2010

This sculpture, which measures 49 inches tall, is a copy in miniature of a 49-foot tall concrete sculpture by Illinois native, Lorado Taft. Although the larger figure was designed as The Eternal Indian to represent Native Americans displaced by white settlers, it has always been known popularly as Black Hawk, after the famous chief of the Sauk tribe who lived in northern Illinois and is credited with starting the Black Hawk War of 1832.

The award-winning Taft was born in Elmwood, IL on April 29, 1860; his family moved to Champaign eleven years later. As a teenager Taft helped repair a collection of plaster castings of famous Greek and Roman sculptures acquired by the University of Illinois in 1874. The experience inspired him to become an artist. By 1883, after studies in Paris, he settled in Chicago where he taught at the Art Institute and the University of Chicago. He received dozens of commissions in Chicago and around the country for Civil War monuments, grave memorials, heroic portraits, fountains and allegorical sculptures, many of which were monumental in size.

Taft placed The Eternal Indian on a bluff overlooking the Rock River just north of Oregon, IL in Eagle’s Nest, a retreat he formed in 1898 with 10 other Chicago artists. For more than 40 years the cultural center enriched the lives of hundreds of artists who visited as well as the local residents.

The Caprioni Brothers in Boston cast this work. Between 1890 and 1969 the firm made hundreds of plaster casts of classical sculptures such as those that inspired the young Taft.

Lorado Z. Taft

American, 1860-1936

Black Hawk, 1913

plaster

Gift of Merle and Barbara Glick 2003.22

April 2010

Walking Leaf insect

Lakeview Museum’s natural science collections began with gifts from members of the Peoria Academy of Science. The core of the entomology collection was a gift of 5,500 insect specimens collected by Harry W. Biehl from five continents between 1929 and 1939. Among these are hundreds of species of Coleoptera (beetles) and Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). A selection of specimens, including local examples, is rotated on view regularly in the Museum’s Discovery Center.

Insects are invertebrate animals with a hard outer covering or exoskeleton. Their bodies consist of a head, thorax, and abdomen. They have six segmented legs. Insects are the most successful animals that have ever existed on this planet, and have been around for more than 400 million years.

Among the most surprising insects are those that mimic or closely resemble their surroundings in order to conceal themselves from predators. One of these is the walking leaf. There are about 30 species of these flat, green insects. They remain absolutely still when threatened, but rock back and forth when walking to mimic a leaf being blown by the wind. In some species the edges of the insect’s body even have the appearance of bite marks and the discoloration of decay. Walking leaves are common in southern Asia and the East Indies.

Walking Leaf insect

India

order: Phasmatodea

family: Phyllidae

Gift of Mrs. Harry W. Biehl 1964.21

March 2010

Chairs are rare in traditional African society, and even stools were reserved for rulers and the most important community leaders. Such men owned personal stools associated with their individual spirit, and on which no one else would sit. When not in use, the stool would be tipped on its side.

Asante stools match this basic form; variations in height and central support suggest the status and rank of the owner. The platform base, size, and leopard support indicate this one was made for a king. The fast, powerful and intelligent leopard is a potent symbol of a king.

All stools are a faint reminder of the Golden Stool, a sacred symbol possessing the soul of the entire Asante people. According to legend, it descended from heaven in a cloud of white dust and landed in the lap of the first Asante king in the late 1600s. The king’s priest proclaimed that henceforth the strength and unity of the Asante people depended upon the safety of the Golden Stool, now in the royal palace in Kumasi. No one ever sits on it and it never touches the ground; when a new king is installed he is raised and lowered over the stool three times but never actually sits down.

February 2010

Palmer was one of Illinois’ leading Impressionist painters, with the characteristic light palette and intimate views of life. She was born in McHenry, IL to immigrant parents. They encouraged her interest in drawing, sending her to the best art teachers in McHenry and in nearby Harvard. She studied for six years at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago before going to France. There she studied under the American expatriate artist Richard Miller, and worked in Brittany, Giverny and Italy.

Returning to Chicago, Palmer worked as supervisor of art in the public school system. She enjoyed a prolific career. She received many commissions for portraits from members of Chicago’s elite. She won scores of prizes and exhibiting works in the United States, Franc and Italy until the end of her life. Palmer was the first woman elected to serve as president of the prestigious Chicago Society of Artists.

Palmer and her husband, a physician, maintained a summer home in Provincetown, MA, a community popular with contemporary artists.