Monday, April 18th, 2005
5-8pm, unveiling: 6:00pm
Henry's Restaurant, 536 W. Main Street, Fort Wayne, IN
Local artist Diane Allen Groenert will unveil her latest painting "Henry's" at a reception on Monday the 18th. "Henry's" is the latest in a series of charming oil paintings the artist has been doing of downtown Fort Wayne sites. Groenert will have note cards and prints from the "Downtown Series" available for purchase. Cash bar and Henry's full food menu will be available.
"Getting the commission to do Henry's was a thrill for me," says Groenert. "I was first introduced to Henry's as the art school bar while studying at the Fort Wayne School of Fine Arts in the early '70's. Later that decade, I worked for Henry Freistroffer, the bar's namesake. Henry's then was one long room and when chairs ran out, patrons would be seated on beer kegs and boxes of beer bottles. Conversations went on into the night even as patrons slipped down under tables. No swearing or dancing was allowed and Henry was there to see it was so- 'a cosmopolitan bar' he'd describe it. And it remains so to this day. I attempted to represent and describe in paint the different peoples and talents who gather there every evening — and the excitement that ebbs and flows through those doors."
"My biggest influences are Robert Crumb, the cartoonist, and local painter Tim Johnson. Crumb animated my paintings and Tim's mentoring excited my color sense, " says Groenert.
Posted by Admin at April 14, 2005 11:14 AM