Untitled (Primary Title)
Cheryl Laemmle, American, born 1947 (Artist)
Fifty Works for Fifty States: In 2008, in a unique partnership with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Vogels distributed twenty-five hundred works across the country, giving fifty works to one art museum in each of the fifty states. This exhibition, The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, showcases the fifty works VMFA received as part of that initiative, which bears the same title. As a diverse and rich body of work, the Vogels' generous giftattests to their passion and commitment to sharing contemporary art with the public.
Cheryl Laemmle Laemmle frequently incorporates animals and elements of nature into strange, dreamlike images. She derives many of her themes from childhood memories, including summers she spent with her grandparents in Michigan. For example, her birds often have a smooth, stiff outline, which may refer to her grandfather's hobby of carving wooden bird decoys. She does not share the meaning of her private symbolism, however, imbuing her paintings with a mysterious quality. These two drawings are most likely preparatory studies for larger paintings. The Vogels valued loose sketches as a place where an artist's ideas take shape.
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