Artist Banners, 2011-12
By Ruth Searles
Photographs by Richard Baznik
Banners portraying noted artists were hung from lamp posts in downtown Oberlin from May to September, 2011. The two-sided banners, typically 3’x18”, were painted by students of Oberlin High School art teacher Lorna Kretchmar before her retirement in 2011. A tribute to her can be found on kaores.kendal.org/kretchmar.php.
Most of the artists are represented in the collections of Allen Memorial Art Museum of Oberlin College. Charmed by the banners, Kendal’s Art Committee arranged to display them in 2012—one side in March and the second side in April. A photograph of the student who painted the banner was posted beside it. The banner exhibit coincided with the Cleveland Museum of Art’s exhibition of the paintings of Rembrandt van Rijn.
From left: Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), by Nick Sakakeeny; Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938); Georges Braque (1882-1963), by Zachary Walsh; and Rembrandt van Rijn (1608-1669).
From left: Frank Stella (1936-), by Saige McNeal; Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993), by David Miller; Andy Warhol (1928-1987), by Melvin Medina; Edvard Munch (1863-1944), by Dina Lebedev.
From left: Alice Neel (1900-1984), by Adam McNulty; Alexander Calder (1898-1976), by Glenna Medwid; and Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997), by Austin Halbison.
From left: Henri-Edmond Cross (1856-1910), by Clara Medwid; J. M. W. Turner (1775-1857), by Zofia Stanley; and Claude Monet (1840-1926), by Kenny Miranda.