Eugene Von Bruenchenhein & Evelyn Kalka (Marie)
Tuesday, March 10th, 2020
One of the most beautiful bodies of work a photographer can make is the one where his wife is his muse. I just adore the Harry Callahan photographs of his wife and muse Eleanor made over 50 years and the work of Alfred Steiglitz around Georgia O’Keeffe. There is a long tradition of artist and muse; wife as muse. This is where I approach the gorgeous photographs of Eugene Von Bruenchenhein (1910-1983) and Marie.
The man was an interesting self-taught American outsider artist from Wisconsin spanning over 40 years of creativity across the genres of poetry, more than a thousand post-apocalyptic landscape paintings, drawings, hundreds of sculptures made of chicken bones, ceramic and cement and thousands of intimate photographs of his wife and muse, Marie.
Evelyn Kalka met Eugene Von Bruenchenhein in 1939. She was 19 years old, he was 29 years old. They married three years later. Marie was a name apparently taken on by Evelyn in honour of Eugene’s favourite aunt. In their small bungalow they created an artistic reality that was overshadowed by real poverty. Inside their bungalow he created art that wasn’t recognised until after his death. This art included the thousands of photographs of his wife, Marie.
That’s exactly what I love about the wife as muse work of Eugene Von Bruenchenhein and how it played a part in the larger stage of his private reality of personal creativity inside that bungalow.
