microsoft art collection
 Online Exhibition/s

Trains Trains Trains

Steam by Spike Mafford
A solitary traveller can sleep from state to state, from day to night, from day to day, in the long womb of its controlled interior. It is the cradle that never stops rocking after the lullaby is over. It is the biggest sleeping tablet in the world, and no one need ever swallow the pill, for it swallows them.

Lisa St. Aubin de Terán (b. 1953)

 

to the Gallery  .....

Lockwood Dennis (American, b. 1937)


Northwest artist Lockwood Dennis uses nostalgia as a platform through which to communicate with the viewer in his richly colored woodblock prints. Dennis chooses either a specific location (usually in the Northwest) or a mode of transportation that encourages the viewer to recall memories of a streetcar or a train, or to dream up possible scenarios associated with them. By adding vibrant color, Dennis imbues the scene with a particular mood.

In this print series Dennis combines the imagery of speeding locomotives with automobiles, the Alaskan Way Viaduct or King Street Station. Dennis's trains and cars seem to stand in for people who are visibly absent from his work. Instead Dennis imparts his trains with human characteristics, for instance in Depot the train appears proud, grand, content and somewhat smug.

Lockwood Dennis lives and works in Seattle. Dennis's work has been shown extensively nationally and has been included in many public collections, such as the Seattle Art Commission, the Tacoma Art Museum and the Hallie Ford Museum of Art in Oregon.

Darius Kinsey (American, 1871-1945)


Darius Kinsey's extensive photographs of the Pacific Northwest logging industry at the turn of the century serve both as important historical records as well as beautifully composed works of art. Kinsey went to great lengths to capture these images, sometimes putting himself in harm's way. His goal was to record all phases of the logging industry from the first cut to the skid roads, saw mills, and finally to the shipping ports, such as those in Tacoma.

Here, Kinsey turned to the railroads that were used to haul timber from the forests of the Northwest. The awe-inspiring sight of the grand cedars being hauled out of the forest is somehow romantic when compared to the trucks used nowadays for the same task. Kinsey's attention-grabbing compositions dignified what was a rigorous and dangerous job, and he always returned with prints for the loggers after he finished photographing them and their jobsites.

Darius Kinsey's photographs have been included in several museum and gallery exhibitions in the United States and Japan. They are also held in many private and museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, Washington and the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.

O. Winston Link (American, 1914-2001)


Photographer O. Winston Link's most famous project focused on his lifelong love for trains, particularly steam locomotives. A 40-year career as a commercial photographer combined with this love for trains led him to make a proposal to the Norfolk and Western Railway. Cognizant of the fact that diesel powered trains were well on their way to taking over the lines, Link aimed to capture the steam engine in its last years. The Norfolk and Western company not only accepted Link's proposal, but President R.H. Smith offered him carte blanche-access to the entire railroad line. In fact, Link was even provided a switch key to all the telephone boxes along the line.

The Norfolk and Western project continued for five years during which he visited 2,300 miles of track, 450 steam locomotives and ended up with 2,400 photographs. In the photographs featured here, Link shot at night with his own creative lighting to emphasize the dramatic spectacle of the steam engine at work. In some Link focused on the train itself while in others he incorporated the train into scenes of daily small town life. The juxtaposition of a powerful steam locomotive and people going about their lives is ultimately dreamlike. Link used this Surrealist inspired sense of location to his benefit, turning his photographs into significant commentaries and documents of American life.

O. Winston Link's photographs have been featured in several museum and gallery exhibitions in the United States, England and France. They are also held in many private and museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Glenn Rudolph (American, born 1946)

Photographer Glenn Rudolph creates what he calls "non-fiction" photography in which he explores the ways people react to changing situations. Perhaps due to his West Coast roots, Rudolph seeks his theme of change in things he associates with the last vestiges of the American frontier. Rudolph identifies the frontier in contemporary events such as parades, religious ceremonies and Native American communities.

In this series Rudolph concentrated, instead, on a facet of the Northwest landscape that illustrates the theme of change on the frontier. "There's a sort of mythology that grows up along the tracks - a cycle of birth, life, and death," Rudolph said of this body of work. His subject is the Milwaukee Railroad Line in and around Snoqualmie Pass in Washington. "The railroad created these towns, and when it left they dried up," Rudolph observed.

Over the course of seven years, the railroad that once connected Seattle with Chicago became an obsession to the photographer. Recording how the old railroad line changed over time, he was able to convey his respect and sympathy for the people whose lives depended on it and were changed by it.

Glenn Rudolph lives and works in the Seattle area. Rudolph has exhibited his work nationally and his photography has been a regular feature of Northwest exhibitions since the late 1970s including exhibitions at the Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue Art Museums, as well as the Portland Art Museum.