The McKinley Suite: Encounter with the Sacred

Art professor emeritus John Solem, a well-known and beloved member of the CLU community, returns to CLU to share his extraordinary etchings with his old friends and current students.

The coincidence of two events in the spring of 1969 gave a new and significant dimension to Solem’s work. First, he met Krishna Reddy, who had helped develop the viscosity method of color printmaking at S.W. Hayter’s Atelier 17 in Paris. The sculptured relief method of working in zinc with successive layers of ink rolled onto a single plate was a perfect means to express the ideas of color and texture emerging in Solem’s landscapes.

The second event was his introduction to mountain climbing, which culminated in June 1976 with his ascent of Mt. McKinley and the subsequent creation of the Mt. McKinley suite of 12 viscosity etchings. For Solem, the encounter with nature and its expression in art are an identical spiritual process, in which each embodies the other.

The recent book BLUE GALAXY IRIS: Connecting with Beauty and Nature’s Rhythm with poems by English professor emeritus J.T. Ledbetter and artwork by Solem will be available for purchase at the opening reception at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 5. Solem will present an illustrated narrative of his climb of Mt. McKinley at 7:30 p.m.

Admission is free. Overton Hall is open to the public Monday, Wednesday and Friday 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.