[From the catalogue-in-progress for “Landscapes & Livestock,” a loan exhibition for Agincourt Homecoming in the Fall of 2015]

WASSERMAN, Karl Franz Joseph Maria [1900–1972]

Study for an Interior

circa 1940

oil on board / 8 inches by 10 inches

Study for Gotham

circa 1940

oil on board / 10 inches by 12 inches

Agincourt’s own Karl Wasserman taught at Northwest Iowa Normal for thirty years. His presence in the community—justly called “larger than life”—had several positive consequences, even upon the character of the Community Collection itself. These two studies for larger works (probably never executed) are recent acquisitions, found in a supply closet at the college. They may have been done as classroom exercises for Wasserman’s students: two studies in value; showing by doing.