Lowell Tolstedt earned an M.A. degree in painting and drawing from the State University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, and a B.F.A. degree from the State University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota. He is currently Dean of the Division of Fine Arts at The Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio. Tolstedt has had many one-man exhibitions and has participated in two-man and group exhibitions nationally. In addition, he has been awarded prestigious fellowships, from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Ohio Arts Council.

Tolstedt is known for his exquisite drawings done in silverpoint, gold point, and colored pencil. His works range from intimate to mural in scale. His subjects, chosen from everyday life and experience, are investigated with a sensitive and penetrating intellect. His drawings are often iconic presentations, simultaneously recalling the American tradition of still-life painting and engaging the viewer with contemporary questions about the fundamental relationship between reality, perception, abstraction, and creation.

Katherine A. Wat, Curator of Exhibitions, Akron Art Museum,
Excerpt from New Master Drawings, a forthcoming exhibition
at the Canton Museum of Art, August 20 - October 30, 2005

Published: Sunday, April 22, 2007

FEATURES - ARTS 04D

By Jacqueline Hall

FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Lowell Tolstedt, a professor emeritus at the Columbus College of Art & Design, is a master draftsman. * Thirty-one of his recent still-life drawings, so colorful and luxurious as to seem like paintings, are on view at Keny Galleries in German Village. The images of fruit, flowers and candy -- each one a visual delight -- play games with light, reflection and reality.

Tolstedt, 67, is a 21st-century exponent of a still-life genre that dates from the 17th-century Netherlands. Carefully representative and meticulously executed, his subjects are placed in neutral or abstract contexts. They exist as isolated entities that -- even with the most mundane objects -- are transformed into icons.

Most of the pieces in the show are small and intimate. Amazingly, they are as assertive as the monumental drawings that the artist has produced in the past. Tolstedt achieves his superb textural and color effects with colored pencils handled skillfully in delicate layers.

Composition: Gala Apple With Reflections, only 6 by 6 inches, is powerful. In a plane slightly tilted forward, the marvelous apple looks ready to roll into the viewer's lap. The fruit's rich color is reflected onto the surrounding crushed foil with its cool, silvery sheen.

In Anonymous Still Life With Orange Wrapped Candy, he duplicates the look of cellophane and foil, adding the delicate reflections in the highly polished surface on which the pieces rest.

Tolstedt's subtle and delicate drawings are at their best in the demanding metal-point medium -- silver or gold point -- which allows for no error. Grapes (Kailua) is a superb example of silverpoint drawing.

One of the most outstanding floral pieces is Kula Still Life With Palm and Protea Leaves, a complex arrangement of petals and leaves. Tonal gradations from pink to white in the petals are impressively refined.

In contrast is the surprisingly bold image Composition With Red and Yellow Tulip.

A new subject for Tolstedt is artificial light, captured in Composition: Red and White Candles. In this fascinating drawing, light from the flames, punctuated by the incandescent tips of the wicks, makes the waxy core of the candles glow richly.

For all the emphasis on technique, Tolstedt's drawings have irresistible charm that subtly lead the viewer to contemplation and meditation.