Ron Boehmer’s “Tinker Creek,” a 1990 oil on canvas that is on permanent display at Hollins University. The painting is the subject of 14 studies of the iconic Tinker Creek and Tinker Mountain that will be on exhibit at the university beginning January 12. Courtesy of Hollins University
Fourteen studies for the oil painting “Tinker Creek” by artist Ron Boehmer will be on display at the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University January 12 through April 30, according to an announcement by the university.
The exhibition “Views of Tinker Mountain by Ron Boehmer” is in conjunction with the 175th anniversary celebration of the founding of Hollins University.
Commissioned in 1990 by Margaret H. and Carl W. Kelley in memory of Mrs. Kelley’s father, Forrest Shepperson Holmes, the painting “Tinker Creek” has been on view in the Main Building on the Hollins campus since 1991.
The 12 studies donated by the artist to the university— and now part of the permanent collection of the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum— are being displayed for the first time alongside the finished painting.
Two additional studies for Tinker Creek were recently donated to the museum by Hollins Professor Emeritus Bill White.
Boehmer received his BFA in 1971 from the Maryland Institute College of Art and his MFA in 1975 from the University of Pennsylvania. During graduate school, he studied with several notable artists, including Neil Welliver, Janet Fish, Brice Marden, Alex Katz, Paul Resika and Paul Georges.
After completion of graduate studies he began his career as a painter by focusing almost exclusively on plein air painting for more than a decade.
Since moving to Virginia in 1978, Boehmer has worked as Visual Arts Division director for the Lynchburg Fine Arts Center (1978-1987), and has taught courses in studio art and art history at Central Virginia Community College, Lynchburg College, Hollins University, The Virginia School of the Arts, The Lynchburg Fine Arts Center and the Lynchburg Art Club.
Boehmer is co-founder of Beverly Street Studio School in Staunton where he teaches drawing and painting classes and workshops, specializing in plein air painting.
Boehmer is recognized as one of Virginia’s foremost landscape painters. Since 1984 he has exhibited in over 130 solo, group and juried exhibitions and festivals, including: “The Virginia Landscape— A Cultural History” at the Virginia Historical Society; “Within Our Borders— The Virginia Landscape” at the Hermitage Foundation Museum in Richmond; and “Experience the James: Lynchburg’s Pathway to the World” at the Lynchburg Museum System’s Court House Museum.
He is currently represented by the following galleries: Nichols Gallery, Barboursville, Va.; Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, Va.; Carspecken – Scott Gallery, Wilmington, Del.; and Lin-Dor Gallery, Roanoke.
Boehmer has been included in “Plein Air Magazine,” “Lynchburg Magazine,” “100 Plein Air Painters of the Mid-Atlantic” by Gary Pendleton, Schiffer Publishing, 2014, and “The Virginia Landscape – A Cultural History” by James C. Kelly and William Rasmussen, Howell Press, 2000
Views of “Tinker Mountain by Ron Boehmer” opens to the public on Thursday, Jan. 12 and is on view in the Ballator-Thompson gallery of the museum through Sunday, April 30. The public is invited to join the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum on Sunday, Feb. 15 at 3 p.m. in the Frances Niederer Auditorium of the Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center for a lecture by the artist. A reception will follow in the first floor lobby for the public opening of “Views of Tinker Mountain by Ron Boehmer” and concurrent exhibition “Helion Highlights: Selections from the Blair Family Gift.”