About the artist
1910–1983, lived and worked in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Eugene Von Bruenchenhein enacted his metaphysical exploration and scientific research through his own private artistic practice, a world of images and objects that was only discovered after his death in 1983. A sculptor, ceramist, painter, photographer, poet, and amateur botanist and evolutionist, Von Bruenchenhein was a veritable Renaissance man. He may have learned painting from his sign-painter father or his stepmother, a philosophical writer and hobbyist painter, but that was merely one facet of the secret creative impulse that this longtime greenhouse employee and bakery worker harnessed to overfill his small Milwaukee home with reams of writing and artwork. He wed his muse and collaborator Eveline "Marie" Kalka in 1943 and commenced a series of erotic costume pin-up photos of her, one of the projects for which he is best remembered today. These provocative and carefully posed glamour shots, which often feature the artist's handmade crowns and jewelry on a nude (and sometimes photographically doubly-exposed) Marie, reveal a fascinating and ambiguous (dis)play of voyeuristic control that prefigures much later set-up "fictional" photography.
The atomic age, and particularly the development of the hydrogen bomb in the early 1950s, inspired a multitude of electric-colored, psychedelic sci-fi "finger paintings"-really he used a range of non-traditional implements, including Marie's hair––depicting phantasmagoric mutant monsters, surreal futuristic cityscapes, and apocalyptic cosmic fallout scenes. A third major body of work consists of chicken-bone sculptures, usually spires or model thrones erected with airplane glue and then painted, often in monochrome. His delicate floral ceramic bowls, vases, masks, and crowns remain favorite examples of the sculptural strain of Von Bruenchenhein's art. Upon his death, a family friend divulged the wonderful and fantastic world of this vernacular surrealist and scientist to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, which assumed control of the estate. Since then the work has been exhibited and collected internationally.
After Von Bruenchenhein died in 1983, his loyal friend Dan Nycz scattered his ashes at a local park where the two men had often spent time. Seeking a source of financial assistance for Marie, Nycz first contacted the Milwaukee Art Museum. Ultimately, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center undertook the Von Bruenchenhein project, photographing, cleaning, and inventorying the entire oeuvre. With Marie's health declining and the small house deteriorating, the Arts Center acquired a large and representative body of the artist's work and most of his archival materials, ensuring his widow an income during her final years; Marie died in a Milwaukee-area nursing home in 1989. This initiative launched the Arts Center's permanent collection of works by vernacular environment builders.
—Brendan Greaves
Above: Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, Eugene Thinks of Marie, c. 1940-50, gelatin silver print montage, 10 x 5 1/2 inches. Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center Collection.
Bibliography
Art Outsider et Folk Art des Collections de Chicago. Paris: Halle Saint Pierre, 1998.
Ceramic Sculptures: Eugene Von Bruenchenhein. Philadelphia: Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, 1998.
Common Ground/Uncommon Vision: The Michael and Julie Hall Collection of American Folk Art. Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee Art Museum, 1993.
Cubbs, Joanne. Eugene Von Bruenchenhein: Obsessive Visionary. Sheboygan, WI: John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 1988.
Eugene Von Bruenchenhein 1910-1983. Chicago: Carl Hammer Gallery, 1990.
Manley, Roger. The End is Near! Visions of Apocalypse, Millenium, and Utopia. Los Angeles: Dilettante Press, 1998.
Off Center: Outsider Art in the Midwest. St. Paul: Minnesota Museum of Art, 1996.
Russell, Charles, ed. Self-Taught Art: The Culture and Aesthetics of American Vernacular Art. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001.
Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology. New York: Museum of American Folk Art, in association with Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1998.
Umberger, Leslie. Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds: Built Environments of Vernacular Artists. Sheboygan, WI: John Michael Kohler Arts Center, in association with Princeton Architectural Press, 2007.
Wisconsin Tales: The Premiere of a Permanent Collection. Sheboygan, WI: John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 1993.
A World of their Own: Twentieth Century American Folk Art. Newark, NJ: The Newark Museum, 1995.