From Left to Right: Cow Jar Oakbrook-Esser Studios based on a lithograph by Schomer Lichtner Traditional stained glass 1996 Cow Jar Schomer Lichtner Lithograph 1992

Schomer Lichtner is a celebrated Wisconsin artist with a long career that encompasses many artistic achievements and exhibitions throughout the United States, including a retrospective exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum in 1984. His instinctive style works from life and self-inspiration, utilizing design elements to create images from imagination, feeling and memory. Many of Lichtner’s compositions are dominated by images of cows, nostalgic landscapes, nudes, ballerinas and patterns.

 

His use of bold vivid colors complementing simple, freeflowing and linear strokes of paint and pencil are more prevalent in his later work such as the lithograph Cow Jar from 1992. Lichtner’s use of graphic lines and strong, brilliant areas of color combined with clearly defined forms enabled Oakbrook-Esser Studios to interpret the Cow Jar lithograph into stained glass in 1996.

 

The lead lines used in the stained glass correspond with Lichtner’s painted lines to outline the cow printed jar from which bright purple iris and red poppy flowers extend. The lead also serves to separate the jar from the antique yellow, gold, and blue background glass. The cows are traced and painted with black enamel onto the sandblasted clear glass giving the jar an opaque appearance. The red flowers are fabricated out of red flash glass. The hue in the center of the flower is removed by sandblasting and then is silver stained to give it a yellow tone and to enhance the detail of the flower.

Nellie Mielcarek

Previous Entry

Next Entry