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The Watercolors of Durs Rudy: New Discoveries in Fraktur

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The Watercolors of Durs Rudy: New Discoveries in Fraktur The Watercolors of Durs Rudy New Discoveries in Fraktur GERARD C. WERTKIN BIBLICAL TEXT Lehigh County, Pennsylvania c. 1830 Ink and watercolor on paper 7 x 10' Private collection As in the other recently discov- ered works by Durs Rudy, this depiction of Christ's Crucifixion is a complex work. This Atfarg fat ...,.si.teloigutig 24`a aVigi idkatti at. ts Cap. 34 AP. D recently found fraktur is rich in architectural details. he great Pennsylvania anti- were notable for the illuminated or quarian Henry C. Mercer decorated texts that Mercer called recalled being "astonished fraktur,3 were formed. and delighted" in August Today, newsworthy discoveries 1897, when he saw a collec- in the field of American folk art, par- tion of frakturs for the first ticularly in eighteenth- and nineteenth- time, as preserved in a Men- century materials, are increasingly nonite community in central rare. This is especially true of those TBucks County.' A month earlier, Edwin areas identified and collected early in Atlee Barber had acquired an 1804 the history of the field. Interest in the Vorschrift for the Philadelphia Mu- folk arts of the Pennsylvania Germans seum of Art because of the striking dates back at least one hundred years; similarity of its decorative motifs to while previously undocumented works those on examples of Pennsylvania pot- of significance emerge from obscurity tery that he had collected for the from time to time, highly important Museum.2 Before long, several pio- discoveries seldom occur, as they did neering collections of Pennsylvania when Mercer and Barber first encoun- German folk art, a number of which tered examples of fraktur. SUMMER 1993 FOLK ART 33 For these reasons, the discovery of three exceptionally well-preserved but unrecorded frakturs attributed to the gifted artist Durs Rudy recently captured the imagination of scholars and collectors alike. Apparently tucked away for years among the papers of an old Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, fam- ily, Rudy's illuminated biblical texts were discovered just prior to an estate auction to which the family's property had been consigned.4 One of the new discoveries depicts Christ's Crucifixion (Mark 15:34), another, a baptism(Mat - They are colorful, spirited, and immensely appealing works of art. thew 28:19), and the third, the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 12-15). Each watercolor bears Rudy's initials and one is dated 1830. Their appear- ance is especially noteworthy because they provide additional insights into the work of an artist who has intrigued students of the field for many years, but about whom there remains consider- able uncertainty. Although the term "fraktur" gained currency in the field of Ameri- can folk art following its adoption by Henry Mercer in 1897, its use is recorded in Pennsylvania much earlier.5 Originally a reference to a style of ornate "broken" lettering, the term today encompasses a wonderful variety of illuminated texts, including writing samplers (Vorschriften), deco- rated baptismal certificates (Tauf scheine), and a host of other forms both sacred and secular, from book- plates to house blessings.6 Frequently rendered in brilliant watercolors and sharing a traditional corpus of folk motifs, frakturs provide a colorful rec- ord of Pennsylvania life, faith, and art from the mid-eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries. Durs Rudy was first identified in print as a creator of fraktur by Donald Shelley in 1961.7 However, since the name was borne both by a father and 13 t itsc(tt tip o 11C o(jt—tu u t his son, some uncertainty exists as to which Durs Rudy is to be associated with the fraktur attributed to this hand. The Rudy family arrived in America aboard The Commerce in 1803, disem- barking at the port of Philadelphia.8 34 SUMMER 1993 FOLK ART BIBLICAL TEXT Lehigh County, Pennsylvania 1830 Ink and watercolor on paper 7 x 10" Private collection One of three newly discovered frakturs by Rudy, this work illuminates the story of the Prodigal Son, which is found in Luke, Chapter 15. It reads clockwise from the bottom right. Durs Rudy has initialed and dated this work. Durs Rudy, Sr.(1766-1843), was Swiss in origin; his son(1789-1850) was born in Baden.° According to longstanding family tradition, Durs Rudy, Jr., was an artist "who sketched and painted [the] local countryside."I° Although it is to the younger Rudy, tavern owner, shop- keeper, and organist at Neff's Church, N.Whitehall Township in Lehigh Coun- ty, that the most ambitious of these frakturs have been attributed, Freder- ick S. Weiser warns that we must be careful not to assume that the son cre- ated them all." Indeed, according to Weiser, Durs Rudy, Sr., was the more skilled artist and penman of the two.I2 Most recorded frakturs attrib- uted to Durs Rudy fall into one of two main categories. In the first, consisting of Taufscheine, bookplates, and a house blessing, the text clearly dominates the composition. Rendered expertly in a distinctive German cursive hand with splendid initial letters, these frakturs are rather formal certificates, reminis- cent of European examples. Framing the text of each Taufschein, the house blessing, and at least one of the recorded bookplates is a distinguishing pair of columns with transom, deco- rated in a restrained fashion with small flowers and, occasionally, other ele- ments. Of these, the birth and bap- tismal certificate of William Deibert (c. 1815), formerly in the noted collec- tion of Henry S. Borneman and now at The Free Library of Philadelphia, is the most exuberantly drawn and in- cludes a floral garland and the initial "W" richly bedecked with flowers.I3 However, an unrecorded Taufschein made for Michael Finck and now in a private collection lacks Rudy's charac- teristic columns. The three newly discovered frakturs by Durs Rudy fall into the sec- SUMMER 1993 FOLK ART 35 BIBLICAL TEXT Lehigh county, Pennsylvania itc-i.Vg/cfitS ) e c. 1830 'Pet "WUfe rift -t-ta fit Ink and watercolor on paper d5"Offes be, T•iffet4 offit$ itub 7 x 10' `De$ 03eitiseit, ei es. BATHE 26 59. 057,\<_9Y AN±Y \5--t3 (3\Nos Private collection In this newly found illumina- tion of Matthew 28:19, Rudy returns to a favorite theme. A ifa icgtitleitt o ittit tutu-men similar depiction of a baptism by Rudy may be found in a fraktur now in the museum of Fine Arts, Boston, but with- out the architectural detail shown here. t Et1c wit .')V i Ulm ( )3 59. D ond category of this work. Unlike the rate bodies of work, each executed Rudy, Jr., or Durs Rudy, Sr., or some Taufscheine, these drawings are fully within circumscribed periods of time. other form of documentation appears, developed compositions based on bib- A further consideration of the content it will be difficult to make a positive lical narrative and presented either of these frakturs, however, undermines identification. Notwithstanding this separately, in series, or, in several this assumption. The use of the distin- uncertainty, Rudy family tradition and known examples, as a metamorpho- guishing columns and crosspiece to the weight of scholarly opinion hold sis.14 In these, it is the imagery, rather frame the textual portions of the Tauf- that Durs Jr. created the extraordinary than the text, that is emphasized. They scheine is a common feature of several biblical drawings that are the emphasis are colorful, spirited, and immensely of the biblical drawings as well. of this essay. appealing works of art. Indeed, it is the use of this almost iden- Among the various categories of tical device in both categories of com- Pennsylvania German frakturs, de- ...most fraktur artists position that clearly binds the two tailed renderings drawn from biblical formats together. Other stylistic sim- narrative are among the most rare. preferred to address ilarities are present as well, including Although illustrated Bibles and printed the use of a closely related group of religious tracts were commonly avail- religious doctrine delightful architectural elements in able during the period that frakturs some examples of both categories of flourished in Pennsylvania, hand- Symbolically rather than Rudy's watercolors. While several of drawn depictions of sacred history the Taufscheine contain somewhat are very infrequently encountered. To directly. Durs Rudy is not more refined and carefully drawn cal- be sure, occasional examples of this ligraphy than the frakturs of the later kind of material may be found in the typical in this regard. group, the style of writing is remark- great manuscript illuminations of the ably consistent throughout Rudy's Ephrata Cloister and from the hand of In seeking to distinguish be- work. Although it may be possible that such fraktur artists as Friedrich Krebs tween the two artists, it is tempting to father and son worked closely together and Arnold Puwelle, as well as Ludwig assign one format to the father and the or even collaborated on some frakturs, Denig, whose hand-drawn illustrated other to the son. All of the documented I believe that it is difficult to sustain a Bible was recently published by the Taufscheine and bookplates were cre- clear and convincing case for two Museum of American Folk Art and the ated between 1806 and c. 1821. The artists. Pennsylvania German Society in asso- dated drawings, on the other hand, are Until a dated example is found ciation with Hudson Hills Press.15 The from 1830 to 1842. At first blush, it which places that object clearly outside familiar imagery of Adam and Eve in would appear that these are two sepa- the possible working life of either Durs the Garden of Eden is also not un- 36 SUMMER 1993 FOLK ART BIBLICAL TEXT commonly seen.
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