Joan Arend Kickbush

Seeking Wisconsin paintings by Joan Arend Kickbush - during her early years in Wisconsin. Sorry, do not have, and not looking for her Alaska period artwork.

Please fill out contact us form, if you have early Wisconsin artwork by the artist. Thank you.

Joan Arend Kickbush (1926, Milwaukee, WI – 2006, Delafield, WI)

Joan Arend Kickbush was a popular Alaskan artist, often featuring native Alaskan children, Yupik villagers and wildlife in her oil and watercolor paintings. Journalist, Phyllis Eilleen Lancaster said, "her style is realistic, with the charm and appeal of Hummel figurines.”

Kickbush started her artistic journey early while growing up in Wisconsin, stating “my mother said the best way to keep me quiet was to put me in a high chair with paper and pencil" during an interview with Jinx Whitaker, owner of New Horizons Gallery in January 2005. She was formally trained at Milwaukee State College under Robert von Neumann and the Layton School of Art.

Kickbush worked as a commercial artist in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Hawaii before moving to Anchorage, Alaska in 1953. Unable to continue her career in commercial art, she worked as a kindergarten teacher while painting on the side.

She and her husband, Rowland Gene Kickbush, purchased a plane to visit remote villages in Alaska that served as subjects for her paintings.

Kickbush’s first exhibition was at the Alaska Art Gallery in 1963. Her work also showed there again in 1966 and at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle in 1977. Her paintings are part of the UW permanent collection, given to Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s wife, and the Alaska Crippled Children's Association’s head chaplain.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Arend_Kickbush

http://www.askart.com/artist/joan_arend_kickbush/11008673/joan_arend_kickbush.aspx

Museum of Wisconsin Art, http://wisconsinart.org/archives/artist/joan-arend/profile-360.aspx4

Photo credit: Photo credit: John Rector Barton, Rural Artists of Wisconsin (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1948), 15.