David Lenz

The grandson of painter Nic Lenz, and the son of an art dealer, Lenz received a bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1985. In the spring of 1989, after four years in publishing and advertising as an art director, Lenz left commercial art to become a full-time fine artist. At first he painted landscapes based on his travels to northern Wisconsin and Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. These early paintings were influenced greatly by Tom Uttech, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and by the luminous light quality of Hudson River School artists Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Church, and Sanford Gifford.Hayes, Jeffery R. David M. Lenz: Urban and Rural Paintings of Wisconsin. Charles Allis Art Museum, Milwaukee, 2004 p. 7 {{ISBN|0-9703613-4-3}}

After moving to the east side of Milwaukee, Lenz began to paint the neighborhoods and people of the central city. The city's children, mostly African-American, very quickly became the focus of his paintings. In these works, completed between about 1990 to 2000, the hope and vitality of the children's faces contrasts starkly with the worn down reused sidewalks, streets, and houses of the central city.{{Cite web |url=http://www2.jsonline.com/onwisconsin/arts/oct04/268412.asp |title=Auer, James Moon Halo: ringed with artist's optimistic view of life. [[Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]] Oct. 21, 2004 |access-date=2009-01-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050406014829/http://www.jsonline.com/onwisconsin/arts/oct04/268412.asp |archive-date=2005-04-06 |url-status=dead }}

In 1999, Lenz embarked on a series of paintings depicting the lives of Wisconsin dairy farmers Ervin and Mercedes Wagner. The never-ending work of dairy farming, the toll it takes on the body, and the cultural isolation of rural life are themes of this series. Between 2000 and 2005 Lenz almost exclusively painted pictures of the Wagners and their farm. This series has been exhibited extensively in regional museums throughout the Midwest. Thistles, completed in 2001, is perhaps the most widely reproduced and celebrated painting of the Wagner Farm series.{{Cite web |url=http://www2.jsonline.com/news/farm/ |title=Stephenson, Crocker Canvas & Plow: A Wisconsin Elegy. [[Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]], 2-4-2001 (accessed 1-29-2009) |access-date=2009-01-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010610063752/http://www.jsonline.com/news/farm/ |archive-date=2001-06-10 |url-status=dead }}

The third area of interest for the artist, paintings depicting the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, was inspired by the birth of his son Sam, who was born with Down syndrome. Lenz contemplated the series for eight years until, in the summer of 2005, he entered the first major painting of the series in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition.{{Cite web |url=http://www.npg.si.edu/docs/fal06.pdf |title=Baer, Andre, pp. 8-9 |access-date=2009-01-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171113223038/http://www.npg.si.edu/docs/fal06.pdf |archive-date=2017-11-13 |url-status=dead }}

From a short distance Lenz's paintings appear to be photo realistic, but are made up of thousands of brushstrokes.{{Cite web |url=http://www.vitalsourcemag.com/index.php/magazine/article/inside-the-artists-studio-an-afternoon-with-david-lenz |title=Dunigan, Peggy Sue Inside The Artist's Studio; An afternoon with David Lenz. Vital Source Magazine, August, 2006 |access-date=2009-01-26 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20070815084831/http://www.vitalsourcemag.com/index.php/magazine/article/inside-the-artists-studio-an-afternoon-with-david-lenz |archive-date=2007-08-15 |url-status=dead }} Lenz starts a new painting by initially working out ideas in small pencil “thumbnail” drawings. The artist then photographs all the various elements of the image individually. These are used as the main reference material for the final painting. For a major work, he also completes an extensive array of color sketches. After the composition is fully developed, the image is drawn out carefully with pencil on a stretched canvas or board. Lenz's painting technique is quite traditional; straight oil paint is applied using small round sable brushes over a primed and warmly tinted linen canvas.{{cite news |title=Portrait of our loss: A story of a painting |url=http://www2.jsonline.com/news/farm/ |last1=Stephenson |first1=Crocker |work=Milwaukee Journal Sentinel |accessdate=7 October 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010610063752/http://www.jsonline.com/news/farm/|archive-date=10 June 2001|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}

Lenz's subjects are people who society has taken for granted, forgotten, or overlooked. These people are portrayed in an empathic way, and the extensive landscape surrounding the subjects describes their lives and the community beyond. Lenz incorporates various elements as metaphors to deepen the meaning of his images. Hayes, 2004 p. 9. Sometimes Lenz takes dramatic liberties with reality, and the use of metaphors occasionally drives the scene toward the surreal.[http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-6399746.html Schumacher, Mary Louise A different Lenz; Son forces local artist to see the 'perfect' world with new eyes]{{Dead link|date=October 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel{{dead link|date=February 2019|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} July 18, 2006]

One reoccurring theme in Lenz's work is that life's limits can be transcended with perseverance, personal heroism, and divine oversight.[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seed/david-lenz-eunice-kennedy-shriver_b_2103763.html Seed, John David Lenz: The Egalitarian Realist ] The Huffington Post November 16, 2012

In “Sam and the Perfect World,” the hills of Wisconsin are a metaphor for a modern civil society that values perfection. Humankind has transformed the landscape for their own use, altering this Garden of Eden, and erected a barbed wire fence; separating Sam for the rest of the world. A halo around the sun is said to represent a deity looking down upon the handwork of humankind.{{Cite web |url=http://www.npg.si.edu/competition/site/exhibition/PeoplesChoiceAward/EntryDetails25.html |title=Sam and the Perfect World: David Lenz Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery: Exhibition Finalists |access-date=2009-01-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090420045323/http://www.npg.si.edu/competition/site/exhibition/PeoplesChoiceAward/EntryDetails25.html |archive-date=2009-04-20 |url-status=dead }}{{Cite web |url=http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/sn/show.do?episode=135927 |title=Smithsonian Channel, Episode 301 Smithsonian Spotlight: Making a Winning Portrait [[Smithsonian Networks]], aired multiple times in 2009 |access-date=2013-05-10 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130630082539/http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/sn/show.do?episode=135927 |archive-date=2013-06-30 |url-status=dead }} Without idealization or sentimentality Lenz portrays his son with his red shirt and Oshkosh overalls to show he is like any other boy, and yet he is not. “Nevertheless,” the artist says, Sam has “something very important to say.”[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/heres-what-it-takes-win-smithsonians-boochever-portrait-competition-180953412 Moss, Dorothy “Here's What It Takes To Win the Smithsonian's Boochever Portrait Competition.'' Smithsonian.com, November 21, 2014]

Lenz is influenced by the isolated figures of Edward Hopper, the regionalist sensibility of Grant Wood, and by the symbolic meaning infused in the people and objects of Andrew Wyeth.Hayes, 2004 pp. 8-14.

The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition first place award also entitled Lenz to paint a portrait of a remarkable American for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's permanent collection.{{Cite web |url=http://newsdesk.si.edu/releases/npg_commissioned-Shriver-portrait.htm |title=Press Room of the Smithsonian Institution. The National Portrait Gallery Commissions a Portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver from David Lenz, Winner of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2006 Nov. 27, 2007 |access-date=2009-01-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080621063046/http://newsdesk.si.edu/releases/npg_commissioned-Shriver-portrait.htm |archive-date=2008-06-21 |url-status=dead }} On May 9, 2009, the Gallery unveiled Lenz's historic portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the first portrait the Gallery has ever commissioned of an individual who had not been a U.S. President or First Lady.{{cite web|url=http://face2face.si.edu/my_weblog/2009/05/now-on-view-portrait-of-eunice-kennedy-shriver-by-david-lenz.html|title=National Portrait Gallery - Face to Face blog|accessdate=29 May 2015}} The portrait depicts Mrs. Shriver with four Special Olympics athletes and one Best Buddies participant on the beach near her Cape Cod home. In the painting from left to right are Airika Straka (Special Olympics Wisconsin), Katie Meade (Best Buddies Iowa), Andy Leonard (Special Olympics Ohio), Loretta Claiborne (Special Olympics Pennsylvania), Mrs. Shriver, and Marty Sheets (Special Olympics North Carolina).[http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/article.asp?article=328828&paper=70&cat=104 Dell, Carole Honoring a Lifetime of Advocacy: National Portrait Gallery unveils Eunice Kennedy Shriver portrait Potomac Almanac, May 20, 2009]{{Dead link|date=May 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

In 2010, his commission "Wishes in the Wind", depicting three disadvantaged Milwaukee children blowing soap bubbles, was hung in the Wisconsin Governor's Mansion.{{cite news |url=http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/entertainment/110469404.html |title=A new painting in the Governor's mansion |author=Karin Wolf |publisher=Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel |date=2010-11-25 |accessdate=2010-11-25 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101127022100/http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/entertainment/110469404.html |archivedate=2010-11-27 }} In 2011, newly elected Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker removed the painting and replaced it with a 140-year-old portrait of Old Abe the War Eagle. She is the most famous of all Civil War mascots.{{cite news|url=http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/123169908.html|title=Artwork shuffle at governor's mansion raises eyebrows|author=Daniel Bice|publisher=Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel|date=2010-06-05|accessdate=2011-06-05}}[http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/06/wisconsin-governor-scott-walker-painting.html Ng, David Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker gets heat for removing painting of children] Los Angeles Times June 8, 2011

Besides winning the grand prize in the 2006 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, Lenz also was included in the 2006 Midwest Edition of New American Paintings. In 2008, Lenz was awarded a Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Award,{{cite web|url=http://www.wvalaa.com/public/view_artist.php?user_id=46|title=Wisconsin Visual Art Achievement Awards|work=wvalaa.com|accessdate=29 May 2015}} and in 2009 he was inducted as a fellow of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters.{{cite web|url=http://www.wisconsinacademy.org/about/index.php?category_id=3592&subcategory_id=6564 |title=About |work=wisconsinacademy.org |accessdate=29 May 2015 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111007184858/http://www.wisconsinacademy.org/about/index.php?category_id=3592&subcategory_id=6564 |archivedate=7 October 2011 }}

{{wikiquote}}

• [https://davidmlenz.com David Lenz Official Website]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20040623020221/http://www.jsonline.com/enter/finearts/sep00/lenz21092000.asp Auer, James. Mural pays homage to the bravery of children with illnesses.] Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sept. 20, 2000
• [http://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/Fulltext/2007/02000/Sam_and_the_Perfect_World.13.aspx# Bub, Barry. Commentary: Sam and the Perfect World. Medicine Academic. Volume 82, Issue 2, February 2007]
• [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5554510 Neary, Lynn. Looking History in the Eye at Portrait Gallery. National Public Radio: Talk of the Nation, July 13, 2006]
• [http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-162508120.html Worland, Gayle. Behind the Brush: Realist Painter David Lenz Finds a Rural Wonderland in Sauk County.] Wisconsin State Journal April 22, 2007

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Category:1962 births

Category:Living people

Category:Artists from Milwaukee

Category:20th-century American painters

Category:American male painters

Category:21st-century American painters

Category:21st-century American male artists

Category:American portrait painters

Category:Photorealist artists

Category:Painters from Wisconsin

Category:20th-century American male artists