KARL PRIEBE, 1914-1976

Karl Priebe was invariably described by art critics as a fantasist. The strange moods and odd juxtapositions of people, animals and objects in his paintings bring his art into alignment with the surrealism of Salvador Dali, the neo-romanticism of Christian Berard, the magic realism of Frida Kahlo and the metaphysical painting of Giorgio De Chirico.  All of those labels are at least partly applicable to Priebe and similarly describe the works of the artists he was close with, aesthetically, geographically and personally, and with whom he formed a small but compelling circle of Midwest artists working in the marvelous mode. Priebe and his fellow fantasists, including Gertrude Abercrombie, John Wilde and Sylvia Fein were kindred eccentric spirits, bohemians, and habitués of the Jazz scenes in Chicago and Milwaukee.

After study at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee and at the Art Institute of Chicago, Priebe taught art at the Wabash Street Negro Settlement in Chicago; he worked for four years as a research ethnologist in the anthropology department of the Milwaukee Public Museum and from 1943 to 1944 he served as curator and then director of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts in Michigan.  Priebe had already begun to exhibit and gain attention for his own art and in 1943, when he was 28 years old, he had his first exhibition at the prestigious Perls Galleries in New York.  The circus animal subjects on view were received with great curiosity by critics and collectors.  A review of that show in Art News noted that the artist “makes the seemingly inward life of animals very personal.” In Priebe’s 1944 exhibition at Perls he introduced a “slim cast of Negro entertainers, weird animals and semi-imaginary bouquets” according to the bemused critic at Art News who perfectly conveyed the sophistication of the rendering: “color, suavely nuanced, drifts across the canvas like smoke and out of it he picks his wispy figures with reticence and delicacy, adding little jeweled touches in neon pinks or greens.”

Priebe’s earliest works were executed in various paint media, however, by the time of his third exhibition at Perls, in 1946, he was working exclusively in casein which utilizes milk protein as a binder. The brochure for that exhibition described his technique: “after a rough pencil sketch the casein paint is applied in washes to an especially absorbent board--layer is put upon layer, and finally opaque casein paint brings out the accents and details of the composition.”  Priebe’s technical innovation allowed him to achieve a velvety surface and his characteristic tone of “nocturnal viridescence” and atmosphere of “lunar plateaus” as reviewers described.  Priebe worked primarily in casein on paperboard throughout his career and his subject matter rarely varied. His works over 4 decades exhibit real joy and fascination on the part of the artist in both medium and image.

Priebe (whose ancestry was German) had numerous African-American friends, students, and intimates who appear in his paintings, transformed by fantastic guise, amusing themselves in improbable settings: “as if touched by a magic wand, humans, animals and landscapes alike are whisked off to his own fairyland, a carefree world of gaiety and charm” declared the catalogue of Priebe’s 1946 show at James Vivegno Gallery in Los Angeles.  A sense of somnambulant wistfulness is present in much of Priebe’s cast of characters as well. In a 1947 article in Design magazine Frederick Muhs observed that Priebe’s “paintings are peopled with Negroes that wander in space, isolated through some personal sense of loss, somewhat soothed by an occult wisdom derived by an unearthly communication with birds and animals.” Priebe’s genuine empathy with Americans of African descent and their embrace of him personally and artistically is attested to by Muhs: “Karl Priebe’s close connection with Negro singers provides actual evidence for a careful probing into the unique cultural contribution of Negro expression in music and dance.  The acceptance that Negroes themselves have rendered to this art, should, if our own methods of analysis fail, provide us with sufficient proof of his authenticity.” A 1947 article in Life magazine on the artist elaborated, describing his images of “dreamy-eyed, dark skinned people who look as though they might inhabit some island like Bali or Java but who are actually inspired by the Negro singers, actors and composers with whom Priebe spends much of his spare time.”

Priebe’s wide circle of friends included notables such as Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie and Gwendolyn Brooks.  His most intimate relationship was with Frank Roy Harriot, an accomplished black journalist and editor who, sadly, died at the age of 34 in 1955.  Harriot was interpreted in some of Priebe’s finest portraits, a genre in which the artist excelled alongside his fantastical works.  Priebe also created an extensive body of work in the form of individually painted postcards which he would send to his many friends.

Priebe’s work was acquired by many notable collectors and connoisseurs including Samuel Marx, William Valentiner, and Dr. Albert C. Barnes. Priebe’s 1947 painting “Miss Chalfont” hangs permanently in the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia in a gallery also hung with works by Renoir, Cézanne and Van Gogh.

Much loved in life, fondly remembered in Milwaukee, Priebe is gaining new admirers in a new century when race and sexuality are timelier than ever in the art world, right alongside the timeless qualities of beauty, wonder and the marvelous. ©Alan Rosenberg