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Aquarium, c. 1960, by Perna Krick. Oil on canvasboard. 15 61/64 x 19 27/32 in. (40.5 x 50.4 cm.) Maryland Historical Society. Accession: A-275.
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Medium/Discipline: Painting
Birthplace: Greenville, Ohio
Maryland Affiliation: Active while in residence
Gender: Female
Race/Ethnicity: White
Biography: Perna Krick was born in Greenville, Ohio and arrived in Baltimore in 1927 to study at the Rinehart School of Sculpture of the Maryland Institute College of Art under the guidance of J. Maxwell Miller. Prior to this, she had attended the Dayton Institute of Art in Dayton, Ohio with Anna Bier who recommended that Krick pursue study at MICA. In the course of her studies, she received two fellowships enabling her to make extensive travels abroad in 1929 and 1932. Sending Perna Krick to Dayton and to Baltimore for art school was a severe economic hardship for her parents, but was a commitment that her mother, a writer of romantic stories, made without hesitation.
Although she devoted the earlier part of her career to sculpture, she turned to painting in the 1940s when she took classes at the Baltimore Museum of Art under Belle Boas and Ben Summerford. By 1947, she had restricted her sculpture to commissioned pieces. Many of her works, which depict various animals, birds, and flowers, reflect her great love of nature.
Perna Krick met another young sculptor, Reuben Kramer (1909-1999), in 1927. Perna attended the day school and Reuben Kramer the evening school. The two artists competed in sculpture competitions between MICA's Day and Evening Schools; they collaborated on Kramer's "Centaur sculpture that won him the Prix de Rome award in 1934. Many years later, Marilyn Harris, on the occasion of Krick's 1991 retrospective exhibition, included in the exhibition's catalog what Tom L. Freudenheim, former Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art wrote to Reuben Kramer when Krick died: "Making art, confronting the creative process on a daily basis—these are the kinds of challenges very few people can master. So I know that you'll figure out how to keep Perna's memory alive by keeping on the path which she did so much help you develop." (Marilyn Harris, Perna Krick, 1909-1991, A Retrospective of Sculpture and Painting, Baltimore, Maryland: North Charles Press, Marilyn Harris, 1992, p. 9)
Perna Krick taught at MICA from the mid-1930s for about 10 years until her work with the Baltimore Art Center, described below, became the focus of her teaching.
In 1944, following World War II, Krick, an Anglo-Saxon Protestant and Kramer, a Lithuanian Jew, married secretly due to racial and ethnic tensions at the time. They managed to keep their marriage a secret from their families until 1948 when the Baltimore Sun published an article about Kramer's award-winning piece in that year's Washington Area Show that referred to them as "husband and wife." They had a studio and home on Eutaw Place in Baltimore. They were committed to the Baltimore Art Center at Fellowship House, which provided quality Art Education within the framework of racial equality for ten years during the 1940s and 50s for both children and adults. Kramer administered the Center and Krick taught clay modeling, ceramics, and drawing and painting to the elementary school age children. Krick ceased her teaching career at the Baltimore Art Center upon its closing in 1956.
Krick exhibited her paintings and sculpture at The Baltimore Museum of Art, the Peale Museum, Baltimore, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, and she received sculpture commissions from the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington and the City of Baltimore from the Community Center of the Clarence Perkins Homes. In 1932, she designed "The Garden Spirit Award," a bronze medal which was awarded annually by The Evening Sun and the Baltimore Women's Civic League for gardens created by homeowners in the area. She designed the award-winning safety trophy for the American Automobile Association in 1939. She had a steady clientele for her paintings, and collectors included Alden J. Perrine, Vermelle Converse, Jules Horelick and J. Blankfard Martenet, who stated in his short biography, "We find in Perna Krick's pictures a kinship with nature, formed in those early years of rural living—a closeness to the earth, the birds, the beasts. But the studio in which the Kramers live is, after all, a big brick stable...at 1201 Eutaw Place." (Harris, p. 7)
Selected References: Exhibition label, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland Artists from the Collection, 1890-1970, April 24-October 27, 2002.
Harris, Marilyn. Perna Krick, 1909-1991, A Retrospective of Sculpture and Painting, North Charles Press, Marilyn Harris; Baltimore, Maryland, 1992.
Maryland Institutions Holding Artworks: The Baltimore Museum of Art,
Maryland Historical Society
Single-Artist Exhibitions: partial list:
The Baltimore Museum of Art.
The Philadelphia Academy
The Art Institute of Chicago.
Baltimore Druid Hill Lake Outdoor Art Shows, annually 1953-1969.
Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College), Westminster, Maryland, 1954.
Multiple-Artist Exhibitions: Twelfth Annual Area Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1958.
A Stately Heritage: Selections from the University of Maryland University College Maryland Artists Collection, 2001.
Awards: partial list:
Architectural League, New York City Henry O. Avery Award for Young Siren, currently on view in the Children's Room of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.
Painting Prize, Twelfth Annual Area Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1958.
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