Alice Cleaver A MONA Moment By Ron Roth Director Museum of Nebraska Art

Who is this Miss Alice Cleaver, and why should we be interested in her here in Nebraska? Well, a strong case could be made that this Falls City native was Nebraska's greatest woman visual artist.

While it is true she began and ended her career in the field of music - she studied music at the University of Nebraska - her brilliance as a painter was not to be denied. In 1904, she successfully completed a degree with honors from the prestigious Chicago Art Institute. She was accepted into the Philadelphia of Fine arts and studied for three years with perhaps the greatest American artists of that era, William Merritt Chase. Then on to Paris and studying and exhibiting in the salons and studio of the international capital of art, and the Latin Quarter Exhibition that was reported in the New York Times.

So why is Alice Cleaver not widely known or recognized today? There are many reasons. But be very sure, as one noted art historian has commented on Cleaver, she "was able to achieve a limited success that few women of the early 20th Century were able to attain." Her career in Paris was thwarted by the onset of World War I, which forced her to leave Europe and return to her hometown of Falls City. Poor health as a result of a heart ailment, a protective and close knit family were other factors which perhaps contributed to her not fully realizing her extraordinary talent.

Hanging in my office now, is a painting by Ms. Cleaver from the MONA collection, which I greatly admire. An oil painting titled Girl with Palette.

The overall color tone of the painting is brown, a somber color we don't normally associate with opportunities for rich, visual effects. But using subtle gradations of color with hints of multiple hues Miss Cleaver entertains us with a seminar on the rich possibilities of brown. Look there, for instance, that fugitive hint of pink in the apron cascading down from her knee.

And the opportunity for dramatic contrast is not lost on Cleaver. Look at those glistening mounds of oil paint on the edge of the palette - pristine, undisturbed, and read for action - ready to be combined with each other on the empty plane of the palette board above them. Against the background of brown, these rich dapples of color sparkle like a string of gems.

This portrait captures a moment of reflection, the pause the artist takes immediately before transforming her vision onto the canvas. Her head is tilted pensively, slightly to the right. And, most tellingly, her eyes are glancing leftward toward something off the canvas to her left, presumably at the object or model she will be painting.

And look at those fingers of her right hand. The thumb, forefinger and middle finger are pursed together in a way we associate with meditation. Her left hand supports her as she leans back against a table. And where is the paintbrush? It is somewhere outside of the canvas. Because the subject of this painting is not about the act of painting, but what goes before: the thinking, the planning, the reflection, the preparation of the paints-- rituals of the creative act.