Fred Shane (1906-1990) was a regionalist, surrealist, muralist, and long-time teacher at the University of Missouri. Widely admired for early down-to-earth portraits of his all too human mid-western neighbors, his landscapes ranged from awe-inspiring to affectionate views of tourist foibles. His surrealist pieces are among the strongest produced in post-war America. Fred Shane, Paintings, 1928 to 1980, is on view at the Susan Teller Gallery, October 1 through 30, 2010.

     Highlights of the show include Cafeteria, Corning, NY, 1928-29, and Portrait of Man in Orange Shirt, 1940. Climax, Colorado (once site of the world’s largest molybdenum mine), 1943-44, and Beach, LaJolla, 1945, are highly original takes on classic American Regionalism. Nether World, 1968-69, inspired by Matthias Grunewald’s Isenheim Altar, 1510-15, is a surrealist tour-de-force.

     A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Fred Shane (Frederick Emanuel) studied at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1923-24. He was with Randall Davey and John Sloan in Sante Fe in 1924; studied at the Broadmoor Art Academy, Colorado Springs, 1925-26; and worked in New York, 1926-27, where he  met Robert Henri. In 1928 he visited North Africa, Spain, and France.

     In 1932 Shane began teaching at the University of Missouri at Columbia; he was appointed Art Department Chairman in 1958, and he retired in 1971. He was on the Public Works of Art Project when he meet and developed a life-long friendship with Thomas Hart Benton in 1935. Shane showed a painting at the New York World's Fair, 1939, and in 1940/41 made the mural Picnic, Lake of the Ozarks, for the Post Office of Eldon, Missouri, a commission from the US Treasury. From 1939 to 1944, the Shane summered in Colorado, and in 1945 through 1949 in California. In 1944 he was an artist-correspondent for the US Army Medical Corps. 

     An archive of work by Fred Shane is in the State Historical Society of Missouri. Additional permanent collections with work by Shane are the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the St. Louis Art Museum; the Abbott Collection of Paintings of Army Medicine and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Wolfsonian Foundation, Miami Beach; and the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.

The entire show may be viewed under Exhibitions at WWW.SUSANTELLERGALLERY.COM.

Gallery hours:  Tuesday through Saturday, 11 AM to 6 PM

SUSAN TELLER GALLERY

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