Perna Krick (1909, Greenville, Ohio – 9 March 1991, Baltimore, Maryland) was an American sculptor, painter and teacher.

The daughter of Harry E. and Perna Krick, she was born and raised in Greenville, Ohio, and attended the school of the Dayton Art Institute.[1] She came to Baltimore in 1927 to attend the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA),[2] where she studied under J. Maxwell Miller and won two traveling scholarships to Europe.[1] She later taught children's art classes at MICA, where Joan Erbe was one of her students.

Her best known work may be Young Siren (1937), a fountain figure of a young girl riding a fish.[2] It was exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts's 1938 annual exhibition,[3] and at the National Sculpture Society's 1940 exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.[4] It is now installed in the children's room at the main branch of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library.[5]

Her sculpture group, Serenity (1939), earned an honorable mention at the 1939 New York World's Fair.[6] Under the New Deal's Section of Painting and Sculpture, she carved The Power of Communication (1939–40), a wood relief mural for the U.S. post office in Pocomoke, Maryland. It depicts a Native American spirit reclining on a cloud and observing a passing Air Mail plane.

Sculptor Reuben Kramer (1909–1999) had been a classmate at the Rinehart School.[2] In 1944 they married, and together founded Pioneer House, "the first licensed, desegregated art school in Maryland."[7] It is now known as the Baltimore Art Center for Children.[2] In the 1940s she switched her artistic focus to painting, and became known for her depictions of animals, birds and flowers.[2]

She exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1930, 1933–34, 1937–38),[3] the Architectural League of New York, and elsewhere.[1]

Her husband established the Perna Krick & Reuben Kramer Fellowship in her memory, an annual scholarship awarded to a student at the Rinehart School of Sculpture.[8] He also donated their house/studio to MICA, which is used to house visiting artists.[9]

Selected works

References

  1. 1 2 3 Judy Colbert, Maryland and Delaware off the Beaten Path: A Guide to Unique Places (Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), p. 174.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Perna Kramer, artist, dies at 67," The Baltimore Sun, March 12, 1991.
  3. 1 2 Peter Hastings Falk, ed., The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1914–1968, Volume 3 (Sound View Press, 1989), p. 277.
  4. ↑ Exhibition of Sculpture under the Auspices of the National Sculpture Society, April 3 to May 2, 1940 (Whitney Museum of American Art, 1940).
  5. ↑ Young Siren, from Enoch Pratt Free Library, via Flickr.
  6. ↑ Art-Sculpture-Federal Building honorable mention (Perna Krick), from New York Public Library.
  7. ↑ Anita Carrico, Reuben Kramer Papers – Biographical History (October 2004), (PDF) from Enoch Pratt Free Library.
  8. ↑ Donor-Funded scholarships, from MICA.
  9. ↑ Edward Gunts, "Kramer House sale shows the home behind the art," The Baltimore Sun, June 4, 2001.
  10. ↑ Baby Faun, from Art Institute of Chicago.
  11. ↑ Bookplate – Young Siren, from Enoch Pratt Free Library.
  12. ↑ Power of Communication, from WPA Murals.
  13. ↑ Marian Anderson, from SIRIS.
  14. ↑ Maryland Artists from the Collection, 1890–1970, from Baltimore Museum of Art.
  15. ↑ Sundial, from Waymarking.
  16. ↑ Reuben and Perna Kramer, from SIRIS.

Further reading

Marilyn A. Harris, Perna Krick, 1909–1991: A Retrospective of Sculpture and Painting (1992)

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