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On Sunday, June 5, 2005
Saper Galleries opened its major 2005 exhibition Tunis
Ponsen: Oil Paintings and Watercolors.
Many paintings are still on display along with others
that have since been pulled from the estate collection
to be made available for acquisition! Please feel
free to check availability with us of your preferred
paintings before scheduling your trip to East Lansing.
The exhibition featured more than 100 paintings by the Dutch-born artist, 10 percent of those discovered in his estate after he died in Chicago in 1968. After having been researched, cleaned and framed in-house by the Saper Galleries framing professionals, many of the paintings were exhibited for the first time since the 1920s and 1930s! On Sunday, November 3, 2013 in the north room of the west gallery, a selection of Tunis Ponsen artwork including framed paintings, watercolors, lithographs, and rare linocuts were put on display. Plan a trip to East Lansing, Michigan to see this largest display of Ponsen paintings ever! For more information or to request assistance in planning your visit, please contact us now! The photographs shown
below represent a very small selection of the
estate paintings of artist Tunis Ponsen. We
would be pleased to share with you information about
and images of other Ponsen paintings on canvas, watercolors,
single-color lithographs and
linocuts.
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Hidden House by River's Edge Recent addition! 20 x 24" Oil on Canvas $4,500 framed Click here to read a very well-written review of the Ponsen exhibition by Lawrence Cosentino from the June 1, 2005 Lansing CityPulse! Enjoy Kathleen Lavey's excellent story on Tunis Ponsen, from the Lansing State Journal of July 20, 2005. |
Arrangement of Apples, Pears and Small Cloth 26 x 20" Oil on Canvas $4,000 Chicago Shoreline 25 x 30" Oil on Canvas $6,000 |
Saper Galleries, East Lansing, Michigan, is proud to have earned the honor and distinction of managing the estate paintings of the Dutch born painter Tunis Ponsen. On site and available for your viewing and acquisition are more than 400 works of art created between 1926 and 1967. They include oil paintings on canvas, watercolors, and an extremely limited number of single-color lithographs and linoleum block prints. Saper Galleries is having all the oil paintings restored and is framing the Ponsen collection at its East Lansing location. Please plan a trip to East Lansing to view and enjoy the "Lost Paintings of Tunis Ponsen"! Tunis Ponsen was born in 1891 in the Netherlands. He emigrated to the United States in 1913 and settled in Muskegon, Michigan where, at age 30, he had his first solo exhibitions. Ponsen's success as a traditional painter strengthened when he relocated to Chicago in 1924 where he painted until a slip on the winter ice and complications from surgery resulted in his death in 1968. Between 1924 when Ponsen entered the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and 1938 Ponsen's work was included in 34 important museum exhibitions. Critics regularly praised his work which found strong followings at the Detroit Institute of Art, Toledo Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Flint Institute of Arts, Muskegon Museum of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, among others. More recently the rediscovered Tunis Ponsen has been the focus of considerable interest among collectors and scholars. A traveling exhibition of 52 Ponsen paintings between 1994 and 1996 set attendance records at seven midwest museums. A selection of those exhibited paintings along with hundreds more are now being made available as Saper Galleries also reveals to the public the hidden studio paintings of Tunis Ponsen -- many being viewed for the first time since they were painted up to 70 years ago. From the 1920s to 1967 Tunis Ponsen's paintings and watercolors were included in hundreds of exhibitions and he won many awards and prizes. Although he exhibited widely and sold many paintings during his lifetime, at the time of his death in 1968 his niece, Angenita Morris, discovered and inherited more than 1,000 paintings and watercolors from Ponsen's studio. Those oil paintings, a few acrylics, and an unexpected collection of woodblock prints and black and white lithographs have now been inherited by the children of Angenita Morris. Saper Galleries has accepted the honor and responsibility of serving the Ponsen descendants by allowing these rare Ponsens -- hidden for 30 years -- to be made available for acquisition by collectors and museums. The exhibited Ponsen estate paintings have been cleaned and restored as necessary to their original pristine condition. The paintings illustrated here have all been properly framed in extraordinary museum frames. Photos with frame details are available. Ponsen painted images that captured his heart and now evoke an almost nostalgic emotion. From landscapes depicting the verdant rolling fields of western Michigan and eastern seaboard water scenes, to still lifes and florals, compelling portraits, and personal interior scenes, Ponsen's imagery conveys visually what may be the artist's diary of life. Never married, his true loves were his painting and sister and niece. At a 1938 solo exhibition of Ponsen's paintings at Chicago's Drake Hotel it was observed that "there is a kind of Dutch honesty in a painting by Tunis Ponsen. ...Ponsen's paintings 'grow' on you. At first they may strike you as a trifle harsh, perhaps a bit too blunt. But go back to the creations again and you will appreciate that while Ponsen's method is conscientiously abrupt, it is far from crude. You begin to feel the downright integrity of the artist. These paintings are not color poems, mood symphonies or anything of the sort. This is prose, straightforward and deliberate...shorn of all superlatives, done by a man well trained in the grammar of art." May the love of
Tunis Ponsen's paintings be shared by all
those who now have the opportunity of enjoying
them.
"The Lost Paintings of Tunis Ponsen" catalog of the 1994-1996 traveling exhibition of 51 Ponsen paintings is available at $15 plus $5 shipping. Please contact us now for more information and to have one sent to you!
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Saper
Galleries....where excellence is the standard!
433 Albert Avenue East Lansing, Michigan 48823 USA (517)351-0815