David Lenz
Winterscape of Milwaukee River
Pastel on paper
1983.21.1
Visual Description: Pastel drawing of a cluster of trees in wintertime with a bridge in the background.
Hi there, I’m Emily Hankins and I am the Assistant Manager at the Union Art Gallery! As part of my job, I get the joy of taking care of the UAG’s permanent collection. This is one my favorites and it is pretty large- 24″ X 36”! Due to its size and the fragile and easily smudged nature of pastel, this piece is kept safely by itself in one of our flat file drawers. With its insinuation of melting snow, I thought it might be a good piece to bid farewell to the beauty of winter and say hello to the joys of springtime weather!
David Lenz (1962- ) graduated from UWM in 1985 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. After working in publishing and advertising, he decided to become a full-time artist in 1989. His work here is less indicative of the photo-realistic oil paintings he would become best-known for and more indicative of his interest in Hudson River School artists and their style and in the work of Tom Uttech, one of his professors.
He won the 2006 Inaugural Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition organized by the National Portrait Gallery with a painting featuring his son, Sam, titled “Sam and the Perfect World”. Winning this award granted him the privilege to paint a portrait of any American he deemed remarkable that would then be put into the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection. Previously only U.S. Presidents or First Ladies had been commissioned for the honor, but Lenz chose Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver and included four Special Olympic athletes and one Best Buddies participant in the portrait with her, set on the beach near her Cape Cod home. As of 2018, David Lenz still lives here in Milwaukee, and you can learn more about him on his Wikipedia page and his website: