Exhibition

Nimbus: The Figures of Clara Mairs and Clem Haupers

23 Jun 2017 – 4 Aug 2017

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​57W57ARTS

New York
New York, United States

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57W57ARTS is pleased to announce Nimbus: The Figures of Clara Mairs and Clem Haupers.

About

A nimbus, in art historical terms, is the halo or the radial lines that symbolize a figure’s holiness in paint. During the early 1920s, a group of cosmopolitan artists in Minnesota formed the Nimbus Club and brought this convention down to earth, grounding their practice in the poses and personalities of live models. These meetings deepened the lifelong artistic partnership between the club’s organizer Clara Mairs and the charismatic painter Clem Haupers who was twenty-two years her junior. The pair’s subsequent pilgrimages to avant-garde ateliers in France and New York and to exotic destinations in North Africa only strengthened their commitment to figurative art, a style that defined and perhaps obscured their careers during an era that prized abstraction.

Exhibited together for the first time, Mairs and Haupers’ works reveal their distinctive artistic paths that grew from a shared creative ethos. The two companions lived and worked together the majority of their lives, sharing a house in St. Paul. Mairs’ gender nonconformity and Haupers’ queerness positioned them both on the fringes of Midwestern society and sharpened their witty and honest portrayals of those around them.

Haupers’ series of ecstatic burlesque dancers, their bodies glowing and contorted by the stage lighting and swift movements of his brush, encapsulate the modern nimbus of the figure that this exhibition explores. Mairs, like Haupers, captured the vivacity of modern women. However, in contrast to Haupers’ voluptuous models, Mairs’ women often shield their faces and turn inwards. With her innovative and exuberant palette, she illuminated the psychological complexity of her female sitters.

The drawings and paintings in Nimbus: The Figures of Clara Mairs and Clem Haupers span three decades during the early twentieth century. Collector Marvin Oleshansky acquired the works directly from Haupers in the 1970s, with few of the works appearing in public exhibitions until now. The vibrant and diverse work of Mairs and Haupers, including their North African landscapes and portraits, Japonistedecorative arts, homoerotic nudes, and trove of etchings and lithographs, awaits future study and appreciation. 

What to expect? Toggle

Exhibiting artistsToggle

Clem Haupers

Clara Mairs

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