Maude Irvine Kerns (August 1, 1876 – August 19, 1965) was an American artist and

art educator Visual arts education is the area of learning that is based upon the kind of art that one can see, visual arts—drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, and design in jewelry, pottery, weaving, fabrics, etc. and design applied to more practic ...

, known for her

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

paintings. Her works were exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum,

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, and the

Salon des Réalités Nouvelles The Salon des Réalités Nouvelles is an association of artists and an art exhibition in Paris, focusing on abstract art. A first exhibition with the name was held in 1939 in Galerie Charpentier, organised by Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Nelly ...

, and earned Kerns considerable notoriety among the abstract art movement in New York. She later taught art at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

as well as at high schools in Corvallis and

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

before her death in 1965.

Early life and education

Kerns was born in 1876 in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

. She was raised by her

pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and dev ...

parents, who had migrated to Oregon in 1852 from Indiana. Her father was Samuel Irvine Kerns, and her mother was Elizabeth Claggett; they were married in 1868. Her father was in the Oregon infantry and fought in three Indian wars in 1856, 1865 and 1866. Her mother was a school teacher. She had an older sister, born in 1874, named Edith (married name Edith Kerns Chambers), and two younger brothers, LeRoy Flemming born in 1884, and Harold Claggett, born in 1890. The family moved to Eugene City, Oregon in 1884. Kerns enrolled in high school in 1891, at the prep school administered by the University of Oregon. She graduated from the

in 1899 in a class of thirty-four seniors, with a Bachelor of Arts. In 1900 she attended the Mark Hopkins Institute (now the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

) in San Francisco. She moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in 1904 to attend

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Teacher College, where she received a diploma in Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Science in Art Education under the guidance of Arthur Wesley Dow. Arthur Wesley Dow described her as "a person of dignity and presence, very quiet in manner, but firm and positive in her opinions".

Career

Maude Kerns Art Gallery (Eugene, Oregon)

Prior to moving to New York for school, Kerns taught in Corvallis, Lebanon, and Eugene, Oregon. Kerns taught art in Seattle high schools for fourteen years, after receiving her degree from Columbia. She studied with

William Merritt Chase William Merritt Chase (November 1, 1849October 25, 1916) was an American painter, known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons School of Design. ...

in 1912. She also spent time traveling through Asia and Europe seeing the works of Wassily Kandinsky,

Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being ...

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

and others from the

art movement, as well as a stint with renowned art teacher

Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

. Kerns returned to teach at the School of Architecture and Allied Arts at the University of Oregon in Eugene. She was the head of the art education program (also called the Normal Arts Department) from 1921 until 1947, her curriculum was inline with the beliefs and practices of

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

. She remained until her retirement in the 1940s. Many of her early works were destroyed during a fire at the art school. Kerns was a member of the California WC (watercolor) society and the Oregon Society of Artists. Her first exhibition of paintings was in 1925 at the Seattle Art Museum as part of their Northwest Annual Show. From the 1930s through the 1950s, Kerns made a name for herself in the world of

abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...

, painting in what was called at the time the "non-objective" art movement, being widely known for modernist landscapes. She exhibited work at the

Museum of Non-Objective Painting The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously ex ...

in New York. A spiritual woman, she embraced the art-as-spiritual expression philosophy of Wassily Kandinsky. She was also influenced by Asian art. She was an innovative teacher, being a mentor to University of Oregon professors, she would do things like have her class paint to music to try new styles. Working with Arthur Wesley Dow, Alexander Archipenko contributed to her interest in color and shape relationships. She was also an associate to Albert Patecky. Her paintings were recognized and championed by

Hilla von Rebay Hildegard Anna Augusta Elisabeth Freiin Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, known as Baroness Hilla von Rebay or simply Hilla Rebay (31 May 1890 – 27 September 1967), was an abstract artist in the early 20th century and co-founder and first director of the ...

, chief advisor to

Solomon R. Guggenheim Solomon Robert Guggenheim (February 2, 1861 – November 3, 1949) was an American businessman and art collector. He is best known for establishing the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Guggen ...

, who purchased a number of her paintings, along with art from other standouts in the early American abstract art scene, for his Museum of Non-Objective Painting (later renamed

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

) in

Death and legacy

Kerns died in 1965, and later The Eugene Art Center (1950), to which she was a major donor and founder of, was renamed The Maude Kerns Art Center in her honor and served to promote her passion for contemporary art. The art center holds a variety of paintings, mixed media, ceramics, and many other modern forms of art.

References

External links

Schnitzer Art Museum, University of Oregon

Maude Kerns online collection at Portland Art Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kerns, Maude Modern painters Abstract painters Artists from Portland, Oregon University of Oregon alumni Teachers College, Columbia University alumni Artists from Eugene, Oregon 1965 deaths 1876 births American women painters 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women artists Students of William Merritt Chase