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Watercolors by Dr. john Cody

October 13 - December 15, 2002

John Cody was 5 years old when he encountered his first large, colorful moth.
That experience launched a lifelong interest and his artistic career in sketching and painting moths.
Beginning Oct. 13, Barton County Community College’s Shafer Gallery will present 30 paintings by Dr. John Cody, now of Hays, a psychiatrist and international painter of moths. The exhibit will continue at the gallery through Dec. 15.
Cody combined his fascination with moths and remarkable artistic talent to produce his celebrated paintings of moths. He is now revered as “The Audubon of Moths.”
He began sketching scenes from nature when he was 8 years old and later began his art career as a medical illustrator. He then went on to medical school and became a renowned psychiatrist, practicing for more than 25 years – something he says he did in part so that he could afford to paint. A fellow psychiatrist calls Cody “a rare avis, one of the most truly creative and original human beings I’ve ever met.”
Cody’s numerous exhibitions include one-man shows at such sites as the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He holds top honors from a myriad of organizations and publications, including Audubon Magazine and the Association of Medical Illustrators.

Cecropia Moth

Dr. John Cody

watercolor

Thomas Hart Benton

Illustrations from Francis Parkman's "Oregon Trail"

October 20 - December 15, 2002

In his art, Thomas Hart Benton showed his passion for the historic roots of the rich and varied character of his country. His paintings also revealed the power and dignity of the common American laborer and farmer.
Barton County Community College’s Shafer Gallery now has on exhibit 28 of Benton’s watercolors completed in 1945. This exhibition is on loan from the Museum of Nebraska Art.
Of these watercolors, 15 were used as the illustrations for Francis Parkman’s “The Oregon Trail.”
Benton was born April 15, 1889, in Neosho, Mo. He spent most of his childhood in boarding schools and in Washington, D.C., and landed his first job as a cartoonist for the Joplin American in Missouri.
He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, then resided briefly in Paris and New York City. In 1935, he settled permanently in Kansas City, Mo., where he taught at the Kansas City Art Institute until 1941. He died in January 1975 at the age of 85.
Benton's position as an artist was determined not only by his own strong creative temperament, but also by the genuinely patriotic character of his Midwestern family background, his Paris experience and the critical period of social and political upheaval of the Depression and war years.
Through government grants, Benton received many of his commissions for large murals in public buildings in New York, Indiana and Missouri. In 1933, Benton was awarded the gold medal of the Architectural League of New York for his work in mural painting.

 

 

Feeding the Trappers
by Thomas Hart Benton

Watercolor

Loaned from the Museum of Nebraska Art

Holiday Trees decorated by Area School Children

Santa Clauses made by Loretta Miller, Great Bend

Christmas Village loaned by
Fred and Kay Schmitt, Great Bend