Fred Easker
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Iowa Road Creek
Oil on canvas
Art dimensions: 18" x 36"
Ivanhoe Ridge
Oil on canvas
Art dimensions: 12" x 72"
Valley Afternoon
Oil on canvas
Art dimensions: 15" x 75"
Connected to Place
[3] in stock
Penfield Books
Paperback
$39
Giclée Prints available
- Fred's landscapes offer an extraordinary view into the ordinary. Drawing on familiar scenes from the back roads of his native eastern Iowa, he explores both the aesthetics and the character of the place, offering a keen meditation on the power, vulnerability, and eloquence of this beautiful land.
Fred Easker has been painting full time since 1994. Like most artists he had previously worked at other things including teacher, museum educator and director of a historic house museum which was completely renovated under his guidance.
He actively participates in the life of his community working on boards and organizations involved in the arts and humanities, and was awarded the Friend of the Arts award from Marion Fine Arts council in 1993. Easker resides in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Fred Easker's work is included in museum, corporate and private collections throughout the Midwest and has appeared in a number of periodicals and books. He was an arts Midwest/NEA regional visual arts fellowship recipient in 1997. The artist holds a BA and MA in Art Education from the University of Iowa. - I've been painting the landscape in Eastern Iowa for about 15 years and am still excited about the artistic possibilities in a part of our nation not widely known for its scenic beauty, or as Joni Kinsey described in her book Plain Pictures, a land seemingly without prospects.
This is Grant Wood country and I grew up and reside in Cedar Rapids, the city where the artist painted America's most famous picture, American Gothic. While time and industrialization have not always been kind to the rural landscape painted by Wood and his friend Marvin Cone a couple of generations ago, it still offers visual bounty to those who are open.
I have spent nearly all my life here and yet I am still surprised and often startled, by the often subtle but nonetheless stunning visual beauty to be discovered. A simple rural road, an insignificant creek, a swale providing a pathway for excess water through a newly plowed field, a rare grove of trees in a land of 100 acre fields and the gentle rolling land itself are the subjects of the paintings, sites that even Iowans rarely notice and often take for granted. Through careful observation of light and atmosphere and a somewhat transcendental attitude toward the world, my paintings are meditations on these discoveries from my part of the world. Though all the paintings are of specific places and times, I hope their meaning is universal. - SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1999
North Hennepin Community College, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, 1998
Indian Hills Community College, Ottumwa, Iowa, 1998
Fennel Gallery, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1990
Charles MacNider Museum, Mason City, Iowa, 1984
Fennel Gallery, COE College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa,1984.
McAllen Gallery, Mt. Mercy College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1981
Metropolitan Gallery, Cedar Falls, Iowa, 1979.
Cedar Rapids Art Center, Cedar Rapids, 1978.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
All Terrain: Perspectives on Landscape, Parkland Art Gallery , Champaign, Illinois, 2006.
Contemporary American Landscape, M.A. Doran Gallery, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 2005.
Midwest Landscapes, Tory Folliard Gallery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2005.
Contemporary American Realism, M.A. Doran Gallery, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 2005.
Contemporary American Realism, M.A. Doran Gallery, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 2004.
Groveland Gallery Group Show, Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2004.
Beyond City Limits: Rural Views of the Midwest, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, Wisconsin, 2004.
Gallery and Invited Artists, Sherry French Gallery, New York, 2004.
Gallery and Invited Artists, DFN Gallery, New York, 2003.
From the Heartland, Tory Folliard Gallery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2003.
On the Water, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, June 2003.
Grant Wood and the Iowa Landscape, Luce Gallery, Cornell College, Mt.Vernon, Iowa, 2003.
Landscape: A Universal Language, Corner House Gallery, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 2003.
CRMA Triennial Invitational, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapis, Iowa, June 2002.
A Vision of Middle America, residence U.S. Ambassador, Vilnius Lithuania, 2001-3.
Path and Passage (2 person exhibit), Percival Gallery, Des Moines, Iowa, 2000.
Contemporary American Landscape, M.A.Doran Gallery, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 2000, 2004.
Contemporary American Realism III, M.A.Doran Gallery, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 2000.
Contemporary American Landscape, M.A.Doran Gallery, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1999.
Restructuring the Prairie, Grinned College, Grinnell, Iowa, 1999.
OUR GOOD EARTH, The Landscape at the End of the Century, Hemphill Fine Arts, Washington, D. C., 1999.
Arts Midwest/NEA Regional Visual Artist Fellowship Recipient Exhibition, Northern Michigan University, Marquette, Michigan, 1998.
The Iowa Collection, Iowa Department Cultural Affairs, touring 1997-98.
Plain Pictures, Images of the American Prairie, University of Iowa Museum of Art, 1996.
Drawing out the Land: The Prairie in Eastern Iowa, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, 1996.
Midwestern Landscapes, Percival Gallery, Des Moines, 1996.
Area Faculty Exhibit, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, 1992.
American Myth, Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, Iowa, 1992.
19th Anderson Winter Show, Anderson Fine Arts Center, Indiana, 1989.
18th Anderson Winter Show, Anderson Fine Arts Center, Indiana, 1988.
1987 Biennial, Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, Iowa, 1987.
Winter Group Exhibition, Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1987.
Still Life Exhibition, Roslyn Art Museum, S/R Gallery, Omaha, Nebraska, 1987.
16th Anderson Winter Show, Anderson Fine Arts Center, Indiana, 1986.
Hot National, Hot Institute of Fine Arts, New Castle, Pennsylvania, 1985.
Rockford International, Rockford College, Rockford, Illinois, 1985.
Mid-Four, Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri, 1984.
Twelve Midwestern Realists, Sioux City Art Center, 1983.
Reunion Exhibit, Metropolitan Gallery, Cedar Falls, Iowa, 1983.
Iowa Artist Annual, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa, 1983.
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
*more than one work
Meredith Corporation, Des Moines, Iowa*
Zurich Kemper Investments, Chicago, Illinois*
Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (museum purchase)*
Charles H. MacNider Museum, Mason City, Iowa (museum purchase)
Commerce Bancshares, Inc., Kansas City, Missouri *
Anderson Fine Arts Center, Anderson, Indiana
Piper, Jaffrey, Hopwood, Inc., Minneapolis*
Cargil, Inc., Minneapolis
Poppajohn Center, School of Business Administration, University of Iowa, Iowa City*
Northrup King, Inc., Minneapolis
Iowa State University Museums, Ames, Iowa
University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics*
Shugart, Thomson and Kilroy Law Firm, Kansas City, Missouri *
International Shrine Headquarters, Tampa
MidAmerican Energy Corporate Offices, Davenport, Iowa *
MidAmerican Energy Corporate Offices, Des Moines, Iowa *
American Telephone and Telegraph, Kansas City*
Las Vegas Federal Medical Center, Nellis AFB, Las Vegas*
Badger Meter Company, Milwaukee
Minnesota Mutual Insurance, Minneapolis
Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Des Moines*
Iowa Realty Corporate Offices, Des Moines
3M Corportation, Minneapolis
Mercy Hospital, Iowa City
Shuttleworth and Ingersoll Law Firm, Cedar Rapids*
Hawkeye State Bank, Iowa City*
Archer Daniels Midland , Cedar Rapids
First National Bank, Waterloo
Securities Corporation of Iowa, Cedar Rapids*
US Bank, Cedar Rapids*
University of Iowa School of Dentistry, Iowa City
OPN Architects, Cedar Rapids
Luther College, Decorah
Cedar Rapids Country Club
Gentle Dental, Cedar Rapids
Perpetual Savings Bank, Cedar Rapids
Bradley and Riley Law Firm, Cedar Rapids
CRST Corporate Offices, Cedar Rapids*
Iowa Medical Clinic, Cedar Rapids,
St. Luke’s Hospital, Cedar Rapids
Cedar Rapids Airport Commission , Cedar Rapids
Brenton Bank, Cedar Rapids
First Trust and Savings Bank, Cedar Rapids
Clifton Gunderson PLC, Cedar Rapids
Diamond V Mills, Cedar Rapids*
PUBLICATIONS
New American Paintings, No. 65, Open Studios Press, Wellesley, MA, August, 2006
New American Paintings, No. 47, Open Studios Press, Wellesley, MA, August, 2003
Recovering the Prairie, Robert Sayre, University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.
The Artist and the American Landscape, John Driscoll and Arnold Skolnick, First Glance Books, Cobb, California, 1998.
New American Paintings, No. 17, Open Studios Press, Wellesley, MA, August, 1998.
Icon, “Portrait of two artists and a single landscape,” Todd Kimm, November 12, 1998.
An American Landscape Collection, Views from the Heartland, Kemper Funds, 1997.
Plain Pictures, Images of the American Prairie, Joni Kinsey, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996.
American Art Review, Volume VIII, No. 4, September-October, 1996.
