By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
After 42 years of painting in solitude without recognition, Michael Hartung of Lindsborg is finally making his public art debut.
Hartung, 72, has three simultaneous exhibits showing now — one in Lindsborg, one at the Salian Art Center in Salina and one at the Moss-Thorns Gallery of Art in Rarick Hall at Fort Hays State University in Hays.
“Gas Stations, Laundromats, and the Spaces in Between,” opens Friday during the Fall Art Walk. Hartung will be on hand to speak and answer questions about his art between 6 and 9 p.m.
Hartung was raised in Fredonia. He narrowly escaped taking shop class in high school.
“I hated the shop teacher, but he hated me too,” Hartung said.
He had a stint in drafting class, but he loved to draw freehand, which drove his drafting teacher crazy. Finally during his senior year, he landed in an art class taught by a recent graduate of Bethany College who had been inspired by the work of Birger Sandzen.
“It prepped me for college and a bigger environment,” he said.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in art education at Emporia State University before being drafted into the Army during the Vietnam War. He knew he did not want to teach art because the people he saw teaching were not doing art except for an occasional faculty exhibit. He returned to school briefly, but decided he would rather paint than deal with the politics of grad school.
Hartung moved to Lindsborg and went to work for Arrow Printing, in Salina. He spent long hours laying negatives for Arrow, a job that was eliminated by computers shortly after his retirement.
“It paid,” he said of his job. “I had enough money for any record or book I ever wanted. That is all I wanted.”
All of Hartung’s spare time was spent painting. He had an upstairs studio in Lindsborg where he painted anything and everything his mind could conjure.
Boxes of LPs and CDs are stacked near to the ceiling in his studio. Besides his paints, a mattress on the floor is about the only other item in his home of 40 years.
“All I wanted I had. I never asked for nor did I desire for notoriety,” he said. “I had a semi-drawn out goal of what I wanted. I kept my nose down and had a full-time job to support it.”
Hartung painted anything that came to his mind.
“Basically I painted everything I wanted to paint. That is sort of what I did,” he said. “Everything was open. There were no limits. I was not painting for an audience. I painted some real clunkers too. It has been interesting. I’m glad I did it.”
Hartung did not like art history class. Everything was identified by a date and an “ism.” Hartung never dated any of his work. He stacked it in a storage room, and many of his painting had not been seen by anyone, including Hartung in decades.
He and some friends went through the art for the exhibits in his unheated storage area during the polar vortex that hit Kansas.
“When they came out to shoot and archive the paintings, I was at a low point,” he said. “My health was not doing well. I thought it might be a fool’s errand, but it was really fun.”
The exhibit at the Moss-Thorns gallery is a juxtaposition between light-hearted and dark and compelling images, Michael Jilg, local artist and guest curator of the exhibit noted.
A piece of a man sitting on a dunk tank is hung next to an image titled “Sarcoma,” which depicts a man dying of cancer.
Another painting depicts a woman crouching in a car that is filling with carbon dioxide from a garden hose. Yet there is another painting that depicts a dream-like image of dandelions at sunrise.
Jilg met Hartung some time ago, but did not know all the work he was doing in his second-floor studio. Not many people did, he said, adding Hartung was known in Lindsborg, but not among the art world.
“He was upstairs in his studio, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, painting his life away,” Jilg said.
Jilg encouraged art lovers to come out and visit with Hartung Friday who he described as being, talkative and friendly with an almost David Letterman- type personality.
Hartung said he never struggled to find things to paint. Rather he had often had to submit his ideas to a process of elimination before he started a painting.
“So many of them just come to me. I guess I am just lucky,” he said.
His mother is a reoccurring theme in his paintings. She raised Hartung and his siblings for a time by herself after Hartung’s father left.
One of the paintings at the Moss-Thorns exhibit depicts his mother, who has fallen asleep in a chair after a long day of work, while Hartung and his siblings are in the bathroom getting ready for bed.
Hartung said he remembers those times in his youth as good times, but he also was very aware they were difficult for his mother. Through the shows, he has been able to meet some people who knew his mother, which he said he appreciated.
All of Hartung’s pieces are on Masonite. He said he chose Masonite because he hated stretching canvas. His pieces mirror the size of the Masonite sheets and are nailed to the gallery walls just as they were nailed to Hatung’s studio walls when they were painted.
Hartung has also been influenced by music, including early rock ‘n’ roll and rockabilly. A painting titled “When the Levee Breaks” is a part of the Moss-Thorns exhibit. The painting is based on a song of the same name by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe. He heard the song one night on NPR and fell in love with the musical artists.
“That painting was from that little radio experience,” he said. “It was all oral. It was something oral and not visual.”
Hartung recently has been in poor health, which was the impetus for his friends to mount the three exhibits. Hartung said he would like to see the paintings stay in Lindsborg where they were created. He hoped a Lindsborg Arts Council could be formed, similar to the council here in Hays, and the paintings could be gifted to that organization.
As far as the exhibit that opens Friday, Hartung said he hopes that he can affect the viewers in some way.
“I hope they are entertained,” he said of exhibit visitors. “I hope they enjoy themselves. I think that is all you can ask. Some might make you think.
“Some people identify with certain people in the paintings. ‘Night Swim’ has a gal wearing a ‘5os-style bathing suit. Someone told me he remembered going out at night at a local swimming hole. That he remembered that and that painting conjured that up, makes me really tickled. I figure and kind of wanted to portray that era of bathing suit. That this brings back something in someone else’s life, that is great.”
Hartung’s Moss-Thorns exhibit will be on display through Sept. 15, www.fhsu.edu/art-and-design/moss-thorns, 785-628-4247. The gallery is open 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays.
If you would like to see the other two shows, information is below:
Salina Art Center, 242 S. Santa Fe, Salina, through Oct. 29, www.salinaartcenter.org, 785-827-1431
Birger Sandzen Memorial Gallery, 401 N. First, Lindsborg, through Oct. 22, www.sandzen.org, 785-227-2220
