University of St. Thomas

More Than the Camera Can Capture

Opening Reception with Artists and Friends
7-9 p.m., Saturday, April 8

Lobby Gallery, O'Shaughnessy Educational CenterPanel Discussion with Featured Artists
7-9 p.m., Wednesday, April 26
O'Shaughnessy Educational Center auditorium

Michael Frey, Pat Jerde, Eric Menzhuber, Dale Redpath and Cyd Wicker, all artists trained in the classical Atelier tradition, will discuss the current state of Realist painting in Minnesota. Claire Selkurt, exhibition curator,
will moderate.

Since 1969, when Richard Lack founded Atelier Lack in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities has developed into an important center for classical realism, a movement that has roots in the 19th-century French studio tradition. Atelier training uses classical figure drawing techniques. The exhibition includes portraiture, figure drawing, still life and landscapes by local artists trained within this tradition.

All of the artists in the exhibit have trained at Twin Cities area schools such as the Atelier Studio Program of Fine Art, the Edina Art Center School of Realism and the Minnesota River School of Fine Art.

About the Artists
Michael Frey is education director of the Edina Art Center School of Realism, a program that teaches classical realist drawing and painting techniques. He studied under Wicker and Redpath at the Atelier Studio Program of Fine Art and has exhibited his work frequently at the Minnesota State Fair's fine arts exhibition.

Patricia Jerde is a 1973 graduate of St. Olaf College. She also studied with Annette LeSueur, a student of Richard Lack, at Atelier LeSueur. She and her husband founded the Minnesota School of Fine Art in Burnsville.

Virginia Keegan studied interior design at the University of Minnesota and studio art at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She later studied with Wicker, George Herman and Annette LeSueuer and now has a studio in Minneapolis. Her work has been included in the Minnesota State Fair's fine arts exhibition since 2003.

Eric Menzhuber earned a bachelor's degree in art history from the University of St. Thomas in 1998, entered the St. Paul Seminary and left the seminary in 2000 to return to his study of art. He studied under Jerde and focuses on figurative work and portraiture. He has completed several commissions with sacred themes, including a new painting, "The Conversion of St. Paul," for the St. Paul Seminary.

Dale Redpath took her first art classes at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. In 1977 she began her training at Atelier Lack and has continued her studies in classical artistic methods throughout the United States and Europe. When Lack retired in 1992, she and Wicker took over his studio program as the Atelier Studio Program of Fine Art. Redpath's work is represented in collections in North America and Europe.

Cyd Wicker attended West Texas State University and later the Yale School of Music. She studied with Richard Lack between 1978 and 1983. Subjects of her commissioned portraits have included three U.S. presidents, Minnesota judges and corporate leaders, and, at St. Thomas, portraits of the School of Law founders, of the late Dr. Luann Dummer and of the late St. Thomas president, Monsignor Terrence Murphy.