Robert Schlegel: Italian Journey is a one-person show of artwork by Robert Schlegel (1947 – 2021) at Karin Clarke Gallery now until Sept. 27. Much of the work was made in 2016 during a trip to Italy — but not all of it since Karin Clarke couldn’t resist putting in some of the art he did at home, too. 

She knows that people loved the Oregonian’s local landscapes as his last show at her gallery sold out.

Schlegel exhibited his artwork throughout the western U.S. during his lifetime, and in 2016 he was the subject of an Oregon Public Broadcasting Art Beat episode featuring him sketching and painting. Yet most of the 30 artworks in this show are being seen here for the first time. Most are landscapes or paintings of homes, the subjects he is perhaps best known for, but some are portraits, too.

Landscapes of both Italy and Oregon lean toward realism with a stylized focus on shape and color. The portraits focus on these elements as well, but then delve into abstraction, collage or gestural drawing.  

In “Woman in Black Dress,” an acrylic on canvas on board from 2006, the figure of a female is composed of shapes with no detail. The space she sits in is abstract, nowhere in particular. Features are left off her face. The emphasis is on shape and color, like in his landscapes, but the approach in portrait painting seems to take a more philosophical tone. Without details, this could be any woman — or all women. 

“Looking” is an acrylic on found paper made in 2019 that looks a lot less like Schlegel’s approach to painting hills and homes. It tries to fit the subject’s face into the shape of a box. Artists often start out with a geometric shape to block in the figure, but then that initial shape disappears as a portrait is completed. This work does its best to depict both a profile and the shape of one of the boxy houses Schlegel was fond of painting. It’s not concerned with being “finished” like his paintings are, as paint is not evenly applied or smooth, and the found paper it’s on is left showing as part of the figure. 

“Looking” is something closer to one of the drawings from his sketchbooks, which he kept for inspiration for his paintings: quick, gestural, raw. 

It is interesting how the approach to representational style changes as the artist moves between his two subjects — landscapes and portraits. Portraits aren’t as concerned with realism as they take off into flights of fancy, like the mixed media “Man and Bird” which has as its subjects a bird sitting on top of a resting man. As with “Looking,” the paper it’s on — a page torn out of a phone book — contributes as a visual element of the picture.   

Schlegel’s landscapes, whether from Oregon or Italy, are wonderful monuments to the places he’s seen. You want to look at them for a long time, the way he must have when he painted them plein air. For, in Italy, he brought his supplies outside and painted entirely outdoors. 

You can just imagine him working outdoors to finish a painting under circumstances where the sun was constantly changing the light as it moved across the sky. After spending so much time looking at one place, at the end of the day he must have felt quite at home. And in “House with Cypresses, Italy,” the acrylic on paper with its green hill, cloudy sky and house with two out-buildings nearby describes a scene not so different from one you might see passing by a road in the Willamette Valley.   

I was fortunate to have met the artist at Clarke’s gallery in 2018. He said then that if he revisited a painting after not seeing it for years, he was more apt to change it from the original version. Artwork became “less precious” over time. He meant that in a good way because with time he was more open to painting it differently. 

With these new works, or rather works that haven’t yet been seen, I am more aware than ever that the artist’s different styles depicting places and people might reflect that he felt differently when working on the two subjects. With landscapes perhaps focused more on formal elements, and with people, open to being playful and spontaneous.  

You’ll want to see the art in person, but it is all available for viewing online. On the gallery’s website, too, you can find a video of Clarke speaking with Schlegel, filmed during the pandemic in 2020. That was the year Clarke began to record her gallery shows in lieu of in-person exhibits. Both her and the artist wear masks and she introduces him as one of her favorite artists and one of her favorite people.

Robert Schlegel: Italian Journey is at Karin Clarke Gallery, 760 Willamette Street, noon to 5:30 pm Wednesday through Friday and 10 am to 4 pm Saturdays. A First Friday ArtWalk reception is 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm Sept. 5.