Press Room
Treasures from the Permanent Collection Unearthed by Gallery Director
For Immediate Release: October 23, 2007
(Southern Utah University, Cedar City, Utah) The Southern Utah University Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery is proud to present The Temptations of Julius Mössel: Paintings from the Permanent Collection from November 1-November 17, 2007. This exhibit presents paintings from the German magic realist painter, Julius Mössel.
Since traditional decorative painting was scarcely in demand in Germany following the World War I, Mössel emigrated in 1926 to the United States, where he worked as a surrealist and magic realist painter. Mössel became extremely wealthy, but lost his fortune and all of his property in the stock-market crash of 1929. In poverty and suffering from temporary blindness, he sustained himself by painting small-scale easel canvases, mostly of animal subjects.
"Throughout our lives we experience moments of joy and sorrow; well-being and pain; inspiration and despair,” notes Reece Summers, gallery director. “These emotions are the human experience and a common bond between us all. This exhibit examines the "darker" and "lighter" sides of these emotions expressed in the individual works of one artist represented in Southern Utah University's permanent art collection."
The present collection of sixteen oil paintings by Mössel were donated as a group to Southern Utah University (then Southern Utah State College) by Mr. And Mrs. Erwin P. Thomys, of Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1977.
There will be an opening reception at the gallery on Thursday, November 1, 2007 at 7:00 p.m. The reception is open to the public and admission is free.
The Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, Noon to 7:00 p.m., and is located on the ground floor of the Braithwaite Liberal Arts Center building on the east end of the beautiful SUU campus. Admission is free. For more information contact the Gallery at 435-586-5432 or visit our website.
The Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery is supported in part by the Utah Arts Council, with funding from the State of Utah and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.