Description:

Russell Kraus
St. Louis, (1918-2009)
I, Russell, 1948
oil on masonite
signed, dated, and titled on the reverse, framed.

Born in St. Louis to struggling German immigrants, at a young age Russell W. M. Kraus (1918-2009) became interested the arts, eventually practicing and excelling in a wide range of media and styles. He trained at Washington University, and his masterful body of work grew to reflect the changing times of the 20th century and could be placed in many categories: regionalism of the 1930s, dreamlike surrealism, cubism, WW2 posters (as part of his WPA job), commercial graphic design/ advertising of the 1950s, a series of self-portraits in costume (much like those created by Rembrandt), stained glass windows for churches in conjunction with Jacobi Studios, portraits of children made for his wife, mosaics with the Ravenna Mosaic Company, tapestries and jewellery; and after many decades of production, when he could no longer create material art, he turned to write poetry. For years Kraus worked inside a famous work of architecture (the 1891 St. Louis Wainwright Building by Adler and Sullivan, featuring red brick and terracotta designs); and Kraus commissioned a work of art as his home that became known as "The Kraus Haus," designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for him and his wife Ruth Goetz Kraus, an attorney at law. Wright believed, "no house should ever be on a hill—it should be of the hill, belonging to it. Hill and home should live together." In this fashion Wright created a modest middle-range Usonian home built from a parallelogram-shaped grid into a hill and amidst a grove of trees in Kirkwood, a suburb of St. Louis. During his 40-year stay in the home, Kraus perfected it by creating stained glass window designs that replaced Wright's original clear glass ones.
Russell's small self-portrait of exceptional detail is entitled, "I, Russell" and was created when the artist was 30 years old in 1948 (and as per the artist's writing on the reverse, the portrait was covered in two coats of Damar varnish, a natural picture varnish that provides gloss and increases the brilliance of colors). Like Rembrandt, Russell chose to dress in costume for this work, and his attributes include a tall fur hat (an unidentifiable type of hat that looks like a mix of old-world Europe with a touch of the American frontier—clearly representative of Russell himself), a fancy floral-designed brass cane handle and black wooden cane (evoking an object symbolic of the careful steps necessary to be taken in order to become a masterful artist), a contemporary looking reddish-brown down-to-earth collared shirt (grounding him in his times), and a string of metallic beads (that appear to be made of hematite that symbolises grounding, protection and balance—characteristics from which any artist or worker could benefit). The artist chose to paint his own facial features and knuckles with strong shadows that focus on geometric forms that help create a strong sense of depth and volume. The chiaroscuro Russell chose to employ here further recalls Old Masters (including Rembrandt), further grounding him amongst a long line of European painters working from the Renaissance onwards.

  • Dimensions: 6 3/8 x 4 inches
  • Medium: oil on masonite

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February 10, 2024 10:00 AM CST
St. Louis, MO, US

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