The three young boys smile as they look out from the back of a station wagon, circa 1956, in one of Adrian Brewer's last paintings.
It's not a famous painting, like Sentinel of Freedom, the artist's peaceful, 1941 depiction of the American flag, prints of which became ubiquitous in schools, government buildings, military bases and homes during World War II and after.
And its subjects -- Grimsley Jr., Larry and Lou Graham -- aren't famous, like the Arkansas politicians and public figures whose portraits he often painted. They are his grandsons, the sons of his daughter, Betty, and her husband, Grimsley Graham Sr.
It's a family image, one that hung in the Graham home in Little Rock for decades, and is an apt inclusion to "A Legacy of Brewers," a new exhibit at Butler Center Gallery West that features not only Adrian Brewer but his father, Nicholas, and son, Edwin.
Among them they produced portraits of the rich and powerful, hundreds of stunning landscapes, intimate figures and -- beyond the canvas -- the Arkansas Arts Center Artmobile, the Arkansas Art League and the Mid-Southern Watercolorists.
"This has been in the works for about a year and a half," says Colin Thompson, art administrator of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System. Not only did the center get paintings from family members in Little Rock, but from collectors around the country.
"Most of these are from private collections," he says. "They haven't really been shown before."
The paintings range from Nicholas' classic landscapes and Adrian's impasto clouds and dreamy scenes to Edwin's loose, brightly colored watercolors, oils and
acrylics. Scattered throughout are self portraits by each painter, a lithograph from Edwin's stint as a combat artist during the Vietnam War and Sentinel of Freedom, on loan from United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
Lou Graham, no longer the kid on the right in the back of the station wagon, but a 63-year-old financial consultant in Little Rock, is at the Butler Center before the exhibit's July 13 opening with big brother and middle kid in the painting, Larry, who is 65 and also a Little Rock financial consultant. (Oldest brother Grimsley -- that's him on the left in the painting -- is a retired teacher living in Rogers).
Although several of the pieces included in the exhibit belong to the brothers, who are avid fans and knowledgeable collectors of their forebears' work, there are some that even they haven't encountered up close.
"This is where he grew up in Minnesota," Lou Graham says, walking over to an undated landscape of a river in the woods by his great-grandfather, Nicholas. "This is the Root River. It's gorgeous. I love that. I've never seen it in person."
Larry talks about the work of his uncle, Edwin, Adrian's son, with whom he was particularly close.
"He left Little Rock in '75 or '76 to be closer to his daughters in Santa Barbara, Calif.," he says. "His use of color changed between Arkansas and California. It got brighter, and he also used wider brushes. You can see the difference. It was a big transition on how he put things on canvas."
WHO WERE THEY?
So, who were these painting Brewers?
Nicholas Richard Brewer was born 1857 in Olmstead County, Minn. At 18, he moved to St. Paul, Minn., and studied art there under German artist Henry Koempel. Brewer married Koempel's daughter, Rosalia, and moved to New York, where he studied at the National Academy of Design.
Brewer's was a peripatetic life, moving often and traveling to exhibit his art, lecture and drum up commissions. Over time, he became a well-established portraitist, painting presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Arkansas Gov. Charles H. Brough, U.S. Supreme Court justices and others. His art has been compared to John Singer Sargent and William Merritt Chase.
And while portraits paid the bills, landscapes were his true love.
"His work is very beautiful," says Louisiana-born, Minneapolis-based author Julie L'Enfant, whose book, Nicholas R. Brewer His Art and Family, was recently published by Afton Press. "He was famous in his day, but he is not as well-known today."
Working on his biography and studying his work, L'Enfant says she came to understand that "it was his romantic idealism" that made Nicholas popular during his lifetime and attractive to collectors today.
"He was a realist, all right, in that his themes are always recognizable," she says. "He was a naturalistic artist, but he depicted things in a way that reflected his own ideals. He was Catholic, not in any dogmatic way, but he believed in transcendental ideals, that the divine could be seen in nature."
1919 EXHIBITION
Nicholas, who died in 1949, showed his work at the Pulaski County Courthouse during a 1919 exhibition organized by the Little Rock Fine Arts Club, according to the Arkansas Encyclopedia of History and Culture, and returned the next year for an exhibition in Hot Springs. Accompanying Nicholas was his son, Adrian, and while in Hot Springs, Adrian met his future wife, Edwina.
Adrian, whose work makes up the bulk of the current exhibit and who died in 1956, grew up spending time in Minnesota and New York. He studied art at the University of Minnesota and also at the Art Institute of St. Paul. During World War I, he enlisted in the 444th Aero Construction Squad and his posters, cartoons and paintings were part of the advertising and propaganda effort, according to the Arkansas encyclopedia.
After the war, he worked as his father's assistant and business manager and lived in Minneapolis after marrying Edwina. Like his father, he traveled extensively, especially through Texas, Arkansas and New Mexico.
Lou Graham has a story about Adrian and life on the road as a working artist at that time.
It was the 1930s, during the Depression, and a dead-broke Adrian was in a Wichita Falls, Texas, hotel room he had no way of paying for with nothing but a car full of paintings and his wits.
"He gets someone to bring a prominent oil man by," Lou says. "He's hung 11 paintings in his hotel room. The oil man comes in with his engineer and says, 'I want this one, and this one,' then turns to the engineer and says 'which one do you want?'"
The story goes that his grandfather earned $2,100 from the oil man.
"He was about hustle," Lou says. "He had to make money."
ATTRACTED A FOLLOWING
Adrian, who settled with his family in Little Rock, attracted a following in Texas after winning $2,500 in a contest for his painting In a Bluebonnet Year. The win also caused a bit of a rift between father and son, as Nicholas had also entered.
"They clashed a little bit," Lou says.
"Nicholas had quite an ego, and Adrian was a competitor and such a very good artist," L'Enfant says. They made up, however. When Adrian was commissioned to paint a portrait of Roosevelt, he passed it along to his father, knowing that Nicholas had long wanted to paint the president.
After the competition, Adrian spent another year or so churning out Texas bluebonnets pictures, but got bored and headed west.
"He was tired of blue and wanted to go to New Mexico for the reds," Lou says.
The juxtaposition is expertly highlighted in the current exhibit with Adrian's bright, expansive New Mexico Sky and Travelers: New Mexico hanging on each side of the blues of Texas Bluebonnets.
His Arkansas scenes, such as Sloan Park, El Dorado, Arkansas with its hint of sunlight coming from behind a stand of trees on the far side of a lake and Mt. Gayler, are just as striking. And his moody Airport Red nude shows his mastery of capturing the figure.
"Adrian started developing his own style," Larry says.
'TRADITIONAL AND ACADEMIC'
Comparing Adrian and Nicholas, L'Enfant says that the father's work is "traditional and academic, whereas Adrian is more modern, more abstracted and a little more expressionistic in its color. His father was much more academic in his approach, especially in portraits."
Adrian's Sentinel of Freedom greets visitors who enter the Butler Center from President Clinton Avenue. Instead of the stars and stripes blowing in the wind, the painting shows the flag resting calmly as rays of sunlight beam down on the Boston Mountains in the background. It's a soothing image, painted before the country entered the uncertainty and horror of World War II.
It's the first time the original painting has been back to the state since an exhibit 20 years ago at the Arkansas Arts Center, Lou says.
It hung for a while in the White House during John F. Kennedy's administration, Larry says, and prints of the image still abound.
"I was on Dickson Street in Fayetteville a few months ago and went to U.S. Pizza and there was a print of Sentinel of Freedom," Larry says.
The work of Adrian's son, Edwin, is more modern than his father or grandfather. Among his paintings in the exhibit are scenes from Eureka Springs, Pea Ridge and Little Rock. His Santa Barbara City Hall is a vibrant, colorful cityscape and his City Lights is the one genuinely abstract piece in the exhibit.
"It's very expressionistic," L'Enfant says of Edwin's work. "He's using color in a more freewheeling way."
A FOUNDING MEMBER
Edwin, who was born in Little Rock in 1927, was a founding member of the Mid-Southern Watercolorists and, with his father, helped organize the Arkansas Art League, according to the history and culture encyclopedia.
He studied at the Farnsworth School of Art in Sarasota, Fla., and later studied with Rico Lebrun and James Pinto in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
He taught at the Arkansas Arts Center and then-Little Rock University (now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock) and was an art specialist for the Arkansas Department of Education. He also started the Arkansas Arts Center's Artmobile, which still displays art in an 18-wheeler at spots across Arkansas.
"He would take it all over the state," Larry says, remembering a time when his uncle parked the rolling art exhibit in front of Larry's fraternity house at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. "I got all kinds of teasing over that."
In 1969, Edwin was chosen by the Marines to serve as one of 25 combat artists in Vietnam. The result was a series of lithographs detailing life in that country during the war. Montagnard Village, Vietnam, which is included in the current exhibit, was made during that time.
Edwin and his wife, Maege, eventually moved to Santa Barbara where Edwin, who died in 2002, worked for a time as a hotel security guard. He also kept developing his art.
Being in California was "a big change for him," Lou says. "He really blossomed when he got there. He was good here, but he was great there."
These three aren't the only creative Brewers. Among the other artistic kin are Adrian's brother, Edward, who was a well-known illustrator, and Edwin's daughter, Audrey Wood, a best-selling children's book author and illustrator.
"The Brewers are very comparable to the Wyeths," L'Enfant says, referring to that well-known Pennsylvania-based family that included artists N.C., Andrew, Carolyn and Jamie.
She says she has been impressed by Arkansas' attitude toward this artistic dynasty, and is hoping that Nicholas' home state will follow suit.
"I'm so inspired by the way Little Rock seems to have embraced Adrian and his contribution to the city. I'd love to see a broader enthusiasm like that here in Minnesota."
Style on 08/05/2018