{"id":47138,"date":"2019-08-10T16:19:37","date_gmt":"2019-08-10T22:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=47138"},"modified":"2019-09-20T09:30:09","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T15:30:09","slug":"bob-kleinschmidt-1927-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/bob-kleinschmidt-1927-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Kleinschmidt 1927 – 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bob Kleinschmidt at Saltgrass Printmakers, 2013, photo by Shawn Rossiter<\/p><\/div>\n

Bob Kleinschmidt, who taught printmaking at the University of Utah for 30 years, died peacefully Friday night, Aug. 2, at home surrounded by his family following an extended illness. His friend and colleague Joseph Marotta remembers him as the “Buddhist master of the Art and Art History Department …\u00a0His outlook on life was contemplative, thoughtful, interconnective, and focused on the moment,” Marotta says. “He had a patience and calmness about him that he applied to his interactions with students, faculty, and friends.”<\/h4>\n

Kleinschmidt\u2019s wife, however, is certain she was married to a staunch Methodist for 62 years. They met at an elementary school in Missouri where they were both teaching. Born in St. Louis, to Louis Walter Kleinschmidt and Tilla Marie Kettelkamp, Bob had graduated from a Methodist college and been at the school a couple of years when Mary Jo Crew arrived to be the new speech pathologist. Bob was dating her roommate, but after they broke up he took Mary Jo for a drive one October afternoon and they were married a year-and-a-half later. Bob went to the University of Chicago for a couple of years \u201cand discovered that academic pre-Attic Greek art fragments was not his period of expertise,\u201d Mary Jo Kleinschmidt recalls with a wry smile.<\/h4>\n

\"\"The Methodist minister at \u201ccouples club\u201d there, however, was an art buff and since there was a great show on at the U of Chicago Museum, he told each couple in the group to take an imaginary $200 to spend on a painting in the show and go \u201cbuy\u201d it, then come back and explain why they had made their selection. Bob and Mary Jo were so pleased with what they found that they went back and actually purchased the work and have it to this day: a print of a quote from Revelations by Sister Mary Corita Kent (1918-86), who worked in silkscreen, or serigraphy, helping to establish it as a fine art medium. Best known for the U.S. Postal Services special 1985 \u201cLOVE<\/em>\u201d stamp, the soon-to-be-ex-Roman Catholic sister was mostly interested in achieving affordable art for the masses (no pun intended). This is where Bob’s interest in printmaking took form, says his wife.<\/h4>\n

Bob went to Madison, Wisconsin, for his MA over five or six summers (Mary Jo would visit on weekends) and then achieved his MFA while living full time in that city. He would later land his long-term job at the U with the help of art professor Ed Maryon, who saw one of Bob\u2019s prints at an out-of-state show and urged that he be hired.<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Art professor Sam Wilson and Bob Kleinschmidt became friends in the department and remained so for four decades. \u201cEmployed at the same place,\u201d Wilson says, \u201cwe thought of art and teaching not as a career, but kind of … getting away with something (low paying but extremely rewarding). For most of us, fame is fiction,\u201d Wilson maintains, adding that success for the likes of him and Bob \u201cis defined as, \u2018I\u2019m still a practicing artist,\u2019 still making a mark. It is that identity, maintained by curiosity and discipline that ensured Bob as a lifelong and long-lived artist.\u201d Kleinschmidt, Wilson says, \u201ccalmly exhibited a rigorous intellectuality, yet a very personal vision. His work was complicated, technically difficult and quietly subversive.\u00a0We are rewarded with a rich visual experience, both sophisticated and … likable.\u201d<\/h4>\n

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In a November 2013 review<\/a> of a show featuring Kleinschmidt\u2019s art at Salt Lake City’s Saltgrass Printmakers, Geoff Wichert takes similar joy in the artist\u2019s work, saying \u201chis self-portraits, or semi-fictionalized memoirs come across as charming as they are accessible and recall Rembrandt\u2019s\u201d in the way \u201cthey don\u2019t just show us the look of the man, but each encapsulate the life-experience up to the moment of its making. Humble details \u2014 the hair on the back of his head, the \u2018very old sweater\u2019 he wears to pose, and personal idiosyncrasies like a \u2018portable blessing\u2019 \u2014 come along interspersed between large, revealing anecdotes … This is art that cannot ever be used up.\u201d The review was a favorite of Bob\u2019s, his wife tells us.<\/h4>\n

Susan Makov, a friend of the family and Bob\u2019s counterpart at Weber State University \u2014 a professor of printmaking who recently retired \u2014 says she has been contemplating \u201chow many artists, who have been vital members of this Salt Lake City and Utah community, when they get older, their work seems to be ignored. Those of us in printmaking know how many years of training and effort it takes to do woodcuts, lithographs, or etchings as Bob did. He was not a flashy or trendy artist, but pursued his art as a personal reflection of family history and life. At times using his gentle sense of humor, his craftsmanship and affection for what the various processes could do for the stories he had to tell, he ended up with a vast number of limited edition prints that will be available on an upcoming website.\u00a0He liked dealing with family history. Things had a German title; his German family history, everything was connected to that.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Paul Wunderlich, a German artist popular in the \u201860s was a favorite of Kleinschmidt\u2019s. Mary Jo says Bob was assigned as an undergraduate to select an artist he admired to correspond with, and he chose Wunderlich, which necessitated finding a translator to write the letters, once resulting in an unintended insulting phrase to the famed German printmaker. They own a print by him.<\/h4>\n

Bill Lagattuta, who studied under Bob from 1973-75, before going on to the famed Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where, after graduating, he was the shop manager for 27 years, remembers Bob as a wonderful technician. \u201cYou have dry or wet materials,\u201d says Lagattuta, \u201cand Bob liked a wet material called tusche<\/em> that would dry and make a [snakeskin] pattern and Bob loved working in it. It\u2019s a very hard technique to master and Bob was really good at it. I learned that from him.\u201d<\/h4>\n
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Kleinschmidt at the press, at the University of Utah<\/p><\/div>\n

Lagattuta\u2019s favorite recollection is of printing one night at the U and \u201csomething\u2019s not going right and Bob is upstairs printing and he has this little black-and-white TV on and I think, \u2018He can print and watch TV at the same time,\u2019 and I realize he must really know what he is doing if he can do that. So, when I first started working at Tamarind and it got slow during the summer I would set up a TV and watch Wimbledon and I realized I had gotten to the point where I could do that, too. And that the students probably thought the same thing about me that I thought about Bob. And I thought about how things go around and around,\u201d he says with a short laugh.<\/h4>\n

Lagattuta even has Bob\u2019s studio in his garage now. Mary Jo says he not only bought the press, \u201cbut he bought all of the shelves and the rollers and the ink. He sent me a picture of his garage and it looks just like Bob\u2019s studio. It\u2019s really nice for me to know that that\u2019s there. And Saltgrass bought the big press. So we know they are being used.\u201d<\/h4>\n

When macular degeneration set in, Kleinschmidt gave up on artistic pursuits. He watched a lot of TV \u2014 which he couldn\u2019t see particularly well and so mostly watched sports. No one could get him to pick up a brush. He insisted that he was a printmaker; that was what he did. Period.<\/h4>\n

\u201cBut he loved all kinds of music,\u201d says Mary Jo. \u201cHis mother taught music and he took piano lessons as a little kid and then voice when he was in college. He sang in the college choir and then we always sang in church choirs.” Marotta says, \u201cBob liked Bach: the \u2018Goldberg Variations,\u2019 the cello suites, choral music. But he also liked Brubeck\u2019s \u2018Take Five.\u2019 Go figure.\u00a0And he loved to travel, particularly to Italy.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cIt was Sam [Wilson] who finally intimidated us into going to Italy,\u201d Mary Jo remembers, adding, with a smile, \u201cI think we went five times.\u201d She says that the 15th <\/sup>century and earlier is what her husband liked. \u201cThen, we got hooked on Italian mysteries.\u201d She read aloud to her husband in later years: Donna Leon, Andrea Camilleri and other writers they discovered together.<\/h4>\n

\u201cHe loved a good conversation,\u201d says Marotta. \u201cHe always tried to see the other person\u2019s point of view if there was a differing opinion. In faculty meetings Bob was \u2018the voice of reason.\u2019\u00a0In critiques with students he was always encouraging: first, \u2018let\u2019s look at this right here, that\u2019s intriguing,\u2019 then offering constructive criticism: \u2018you could try this \u2026 or leave it alone awhile, come back to it later.\u2019 Patient. Methodical.\u00a0Sometimes a bit long in his assessment (I\u2019m looking at my watch now and smiling), but people listened. Ever present.<\/h4>\n

\u201cMost artists are a real pain in the ass. Fits of emotion, depression, elation, anxiety, borderline-narcissistic. It\u2019s a solitary practice that can lead to idiosyncratic behavior. Bob wasn\u2019t like that. Or if he was he didn\u2019t show it. He was cool, like a calm day at Walden Pond.\u00a0You want a clear assessment of something, talk to Bob, give him a few good minutes, he\u2019ll come up with all the possibilities. Don\u2019t even think of looking at your cellphone.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Artist, educator, and family friend Paul Heath concurs. \u201cBob was always present and in the moment as a teacher,\u201d he says. \u201cAs [artist] Willamarie Huelskamp [has] mentioned, Bob always encouraged you to look and think deeper about your work. He also made great suggestions about the surface quality of a print … how to make a rich black within a lithograph or control the blushing quality of a wash on the limestone slab. Bob was both a strong and a gentle man. He loved the physicality of art and brought his background and sensitivity with language and literature into his work for all to enjoy.\u201d<\/h4>\n

During the mid-1980s, Carolyn Coalson and Nel Ivancich (1941-2014) were undergraduate students and studio mates who listened with alacrity to Kleinschmidt\u2019s lengthy critiques of their work. \u201cWe both agreed that Bob\u2019s feedback was invaluable,\u201d says Coalson. \u201cWhen he critiqued work, one listened for the unvarnished truth,\u201d she recalls of his honesty. \u201c<\/strong>I was not a good printmaker but fell in love with the process because of Bob’s tremendous excitement for it, his accessibility, his enthusiasm …\u201d Classes had assigned duties that included preparing acid baths and stoking up the stoves and editing and inking plates, so that his contagious enthusiasm stood the two women in good stead. Coalson says Bob was always right in there with them working alongside.<\/h4>\n
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Kleinschmidt with Veera Kasicharernvat (left) and with Paul Vincent Bernard, in 2003.<\/p><\/div>\n

Paul Vincent Bernard, sharing a photo of himself, Veera Kasicharernvat and Bob at Paul\u2019s Guthrie studio in 2003, remarked that before Bob would make his first move, or allow his students theirs, he would pose the question \u201cWhat lies do you have for us today?\u201d \u201cMore than anything Bob may have said,\u201d Bernard continues, \u201cI was taken by his approach to making art, which in turn influences everything I do as an artist … Like Michelangelo, look for the image that the plate, the stone, or the woodblock can reveal.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Kasicharernvat hails from Thailand and says he always felt welcome around Kleinschmidt. \u201cI became Bob\u2019s student in early 1980 and focused in printmaking at the U. He taught me to balance repetition\/variation and edit between intellect and intuition in art-process that I could also apply in daily life-process. Another lesson from him without saying a word to me was to keep working \u2026\u201d<\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/a>Summing up what many have felt about the artist and his work, Makov says, \u201cAppreciation for [Bob\u2019s] talent means that we have slowed our lives down long enough to get into the mind of a creative being whose big wish was to share his life and talent with others. It is a gesture that often gets ignored. Those of us who knew Bob are lucky enough to maintain the memories and stories about him. But those who did not know him personally can also appreciate the work he has left behind. Lucky for all of us that he left so much.\u201d<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Robert Kleinschmidt is survived by his wife; one son, Tom (Sheila), West Wendover, Nevada; and two grandchildren, Karina and Cody. A Celebration of Life will be held at a later date to be announced.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bob Kleinschmidt, who taught printmaking at the University of Utah for 30 years, died peacefully Friday night, Aug. 2, at home surrounded by his family following an extended illness. His friend and colleague Joseph Marotta remembers him as the “Buddhist master of the Art and Art History Department […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":844,"featured_media":47148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,43,14],"tags":[1696],"class_list":["post-47138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artist_profiles","category-in_memoriam","category-visual_arts","tag-bob-kleinschmidt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/bobkleinschmidt.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-31 16:41:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47138"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47176,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47138\/revisions\/47176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}