This collection holds and presents publications by modern artist Johannes von Gumppenberg.
Born in Germany in 1931, von Gumppenberg studied at Rhode Island School of Design, graduating in 1955, and then earned his MFA from Yale University in 1962. He also studied at Munich Academy of Fine Arts. During his teaching career, he was on the faculty of the University of Illinois and Kalamazoo College, and taught privately for many years as well. He retired to Jamestown, Rhode Island, where he lives with his wife Janet von Gumppenberg.
-
Color and Composition: Twelve Letters to Val Hall
Johannes H. von Gumppenberg and Janet von Gumppenberg
From 2008 through 2013 Johannes led an extracurricular seminar in the Circle of Scholars at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. As usual, every year and for every presentation he prepared full teaching notes and copious slides and handouts. In the middle years, from 2010 through 2013, he started these Letters underlying the seminars: "As I thought about my own work as an artist and my eyesight weakened, I ventured to write down my understanding of Visual Art, and decided to write the essays as personal letters to my fellow artist."
Johannes often said this would provide the needed supplement for his other major book, The Formulation of a Graphic Language, which studies the pictorial perception of lines, shapes, and forms, illustrated in black and white only. This book expresses his lifelong interest in Color and Composition.
Before losing his eyesight, Johannes' handwritten script was more perfect. Here it is at least readable, and he desired to keep his handmade book as it was sent to his friend, Val Hall.
-
The Likeness of a Beautiful Thing
Johannes H. von Gumppenberg
In the 1990s Johannes looked back to the Philosophy of Design course he took from John Howard Benson in the 1950s when he was an undergraduate at Rhode Island School of Design. He takes this as the springboard to discuss his ideas on aesthetics -- what visual beauty is and how to make it.
-
Johannes Speaks: Blog 2016
Johannes H. von Gumppenberg and Janet von Gumppenberg
In 2016 Johannes provided two Blogs on his personal website, Johannes-von-Gumppenberg.com: Johannes Speaks (weekly reflections) and Johannes Writes (longer essays). This Johannes Speaks collection contains his current expressions during the year 2016, with illustrations he selected mostly from his unpublished work.
-
The Formulation of a Graphic Language
Johannes H. von Gumppenberg
A philosophical study of fundamental concepts in delivering the two-dimensional rendition of basic forms. Starting in the late 1950s, the artist posed himself multiple problems about pictorial perception discovered when rendering form, then created 70 black-and-white plates and 20 figures, each a separate work of art, to illustrate the effort. The accompanying text discusses his reflections on his successes and failures and his philosophy regarding the artistic attempt in general, a personal aesthetics.
-
In the Heart of America, 1650
Johannes H. von Gumppenberg, Joannis Van Loon, and Janet von Gumppenberg
This small book joins together the creations of two men working three hundred years apart.
The tale from the autobiography of Joannis Van Loon, doctor of Rembrandt Van Rijn, tells of his adventures when he traveled to visit Nieuw Amsterdam in the recently settled continent of America in 1650.
The drawings and paintings come from the work of independent artist Johannes von Gumppenberg, taken mostly from the time when he lived near the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, during the last quarter of the 1900s.
Two "Johanneses," far apart in time, developed themes that share much in common and hopefully will provide enjoyment for the reader.
-
A Lexicon of Drawing Problems and Solutions
Johannes H. von Gumppenberg
Not so much a "how-to" on drawing, this book of unique art plates adds new insights to modern concepts of composition and design. Its beautiful presentation seeks to please the art collector as well as the student.
A single theme, whose nuggets are scattered throughout, unifies these varied and original drawings done over a period of ten years: Understanding fundamentals enables the modern artist to present "all things in all ways," making the most of both observation and inventiveness.
This volume consists only of images. While including "teaching text" handwritten into the illustrations, at the same time the artist crafted each plate to speak by example as a work of art.
This seemingly modest but intensely interesting collection of black and white illustrations was done as freehand studies with the ball-point pen, originally sized for 8.5 x 11 inch paper.
Some earlier pages were multiplied and passed on as teaching aids to students. The greater number served the artist in analytical experiment and study, showing what possibilities his insights can deliver in extending modern freedoms for the thoughtful viewer.
Later pages are unique works of art seeking to carry into execution a creative wish.
Overall this collection seems the offspring or sequel of a more severely formal earlier book: The Formulation of a Graphic Language.
-
The Intellectual Travels of an Artist: A Letter to Claire Marcille Gadrow of Rhode Island School of Design
Johannes H. von Gumppenberg
This essay contains reflections on an artist’s education and various teachers, gaps and omissions, and some thoughts on the ideal education for an artist.
-
Space and Emotional Urgency in Contemporary Art
Johannes H. von Gumppenberg
This booklet was prepared as a magazine article, yet never published. Written before the more comprehensive book, The Formulation of a Graphic Language, it offers an introduction to the fundamental concepts later developed there to fuller range.
-
Preparations for Instruction in Lettering
Johannes H. von Gumppenberg
This lettering manual is named "Preparations for Instruction" because it contains the notes handed out in the classroom by the author in 1971. Although slightly informal, this booklet contains some very useful advice, some beautifully executed sample plates, and a moving tribute to the author's teacher, John Howard Benson, author of the full-length classic, "The Elements of Lettering" (1950).