Conservation in Watercolor
Work of Landscape Painter Michael Strueber to be Exhibited at The Barn at Fallingwater
by Laura Ainsley
Fallingwater Interpretive Team Leader

Michael Strueber can’t imagine living anywhere else. Born, raised and educated in western Pennsylvania, Strueber maintains that its streams, meadows, valleys and hills offer all the inspiration one could desire. He has traveled widely, but in doing so has found only greater appreciation for the drama and beauty of Pennsylvania’s terrain. He declares with conviction, “I consider the mountains in my blood.”

In his upcoming exhibition, Perspectives on Western Pennsylvania: Paintings by Michael M. Strueber, running July 24th through September 6th at the newly renovated Barn at Fallingwater, Michael Strueber’s grasp of the regional landscape is clear. Working in watercolors, Strueber seeks to know the land he loves. “I paint what I want to understand, and sometimes you don’t understand something until you attempt to draw it.” Finding artistic inspiration in the natural world, he finds it essential to do the entirety of his landscape work while on the scene itself. Rather than using photographs, he knows instead the significance of not merely seeing the place, but of feeling it as well. “When you’re painting outside for eight hours a day and chipmunks come and sit at your feet, you know you’re a part of it.” He believes that one can begin to understand subtleties of growth, change, pattern and texture only when fully present and sensitive to the environment on a deeper level. For Strueber, the art that grows from this real connection is represented most precisely with watercolor, because of its fluidity, drama and easy portability.

Strueber’s landscapes include no buildings...only the seasons and topography of the natural world. Striving to represent “the essence of Pennsylvania”, the artist steers from conventional, “glamorous” scenes, preferring instead to draw people’s attention to the everyday, to peer more closely at the quiet. “In particular,” Strueber explains, “I paint scenes that can be seen almost anywhere in Pennsylvania.”

The landscape is not Strueber’s only passion. Botanicals and still life studies allow the artist to comprehend nature on an even more minute scale. The same can be said of his enthusiasm for gardening, which keeps him in direct and focused contact with the land. “Most of the time when I’m not painting, I’m gardening.” As a naturalist and an artist, Strueber’s two passions have become inextricably complementary. “Knowledge and interest in nature has been my singular focus in art. I paint somewhat from a conservationist perspective.” In this way, he sees his work meshing nicely with the mission of WPC. “Western Pennsylvania Conservancy exists for the same reason I paint,” says Strueber...”to protect and perpetuate the magnificent beauty of an increasingly endangered landscape.” In the process, the artist touches both the reality and the sublime. “My work celebrates life. I am an optimist. I paint for the pure joy of the experience.”

Michael Strueber has degrees from Clarion, Indiana and Duquesne Universities. In addition, he has amassed 90 post-graduate credits from the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard and the University of North Carolina. His work has been exhibited widely, and is represented in over 250 private collections. Strueber is a distinguished arts administrator. He was the founding director of the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, founder of the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance and Chairman of the Fine Arts Department at Saint Francis University. He also serves on the boards of Juniata College, Phipps Conservatory and the Fallingwater Advisory Committee of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, all of which allow him to actively support growing environmental education and arts programs and facilitate the establishment of informed policies from an environmentally sensitive perspective.

On April 8, 2004, Representative Bill Shuster (right) presented a check for $100,000 toward the landscape master plan at Fallingwater to Lynda S. Waggoner (Director and Vice President of WPC at center) and Alex Speyer (WPC Board member and Chair of the Fallingwater Advisory Committee, pictured above).