2/7/23

By FHSU University Communications

HAYS, Kan. – Fort Hays State University is pleased to present "Light from the Past: Ian Hornak, A Retrospective," a major exhibition of the innovator’s life’s work. The exhibit originated in Los Angeles, California, in 2012 and was later showcased at the Federal Reserve in Washington D.C. during the 2013 Presidential Inauguration. Hornak's work will be on display at the Moss-Thorns Gallery of Art from Feb. 10-24.

Ian Hornak's (1944-2002) artistic talent was visible at an early age. Today, he is regarded in art history as one of the founding artists of the Photorealist and Hyperrealist movements.

His earliest works show influences of the high renaissance masters, such as Leonardo and Michelangelo, whose drawings and paintings he saw in a book about the Old Masters given to him by his mother. The technical skills Hornak learned from emulating the work of previous masters are visible in his art throughout his career. 

Hornak's realism was counter to the abstract expressionist movement popular in the 1960s, but he resisted pressure from teachers and other artists to work in a non-representational style. He continued in the realist tradition even after moving to New York City in 1968, where he became close friends with some of the leading abstract and pop artists, Willem de Kooning, Robert Indiana, Andy Warhol, and Robert Motherwell. 

One of Hornak's signature styles was the technique of transposing multiple photographs of a landscape into one painting. Using photographs he took during his travels as inspiration, Hornak layered the images to create multiple-exposure landscape paintings. The resulting paintings display both surrealism and romanticism and brought critical acclaim to the artist in the 1970s. John Canaday wrote in the New York Times in 1974, “…Mr. Hornak is right at the top of the list of romantically descriptive painters today.”

In the mid-1980s, Hornak began adding "painted frames" -- flat, wood borders that he would use to expand the imagery of the canvas. He used these painted frames in his landscapes to create a different type of multiple-exposure painting.

Hornak also employed "painted frames" when he began experimenting with still-life painting in the late-1980s. His still lives show reverence for Flemish and Dutch masters and portray a keen sense of design and openness to vibrant color.

In a 1994 interview with Cover Magazine, Hornak said of his artistic approach to still life painting, “While I know that the beautiful, the spiritual and the sublime are today suspect, I have begun to stop resisting the constant urge to deny that beauty has a valid right to exist in contemporary art.”

Hornak continued to paint and create new, imaginative works until his untimely death from an aortic aneurysm in 2002 at the age of fifty-eight at his studio in East Hampton, New York.

Ian Hornak’s artwork is owned by many major museums throughout the United States, including the Smithsonian Institution, Library of Congress, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Corcoran Gallery of Art Legacy Collection, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

About the Moss-Thorns Gallery of Art

For many years, Art and Design Programs were spread out among a number of buildings and never had a formal gallery. In 1969, John C. Thorns, Jr. first presented his vision to the college administration for a regional art museum with educational laboratories to house the Department of Art. With the completion of Rarick Hall in the spring of 1981, Thorns' vision was realized.

When it first opened, the gallery was called the Visual Arts Center Gallery. It was rededicated the Moss-Thorns Gallery of Art on October 11, 1987, during the annual homecoming activities. The gallery was renamed for Joel C. Moss (chair of the department from 1946 to 1973) and John C. Thorns, Jr. (chair from 1973 to 1990).

Connected to the Center for Art & Design, the Moss-Thorns Gallery (& The Patricia A. Schmidt Gallery Lobby) is home to various student art exhibits, faculty shows, and traveling exhibits throughout the year. During the fall and spring, the gallery is open Monday - Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.