Calgene Fine Art Competition
Natsoulas Gallery
1990 - 1992
‘Rich & Rural #1’
‘Rich & Rural #2’
In 1990 the great American artist, Wayne Thiebaud, selected two of my oil painting for the Calgene Contemporary Fine Art Competition at the Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, CA. This gave me an enormous thrill because Wayne Thiebaud’s work is some that I admire in my top 10 list of artist’s styles that have inspired me. (My list includes a mixed variety from Vermeer to Van Gogh with late Kandinsky, Sargent, George Carlson, Da Vinci and particularly Thiebaud in between).
11 years earlier I was lucky to attend a one-day workshop Wayne Thiebaud gave at the Boise Museum of Art. I was anonymous to him at that workshop attended by many people, so I really was honored that he selected my work for this show.
A review of the show was written up in THE DAVIS ENTERPRISE WEEKEND by Marilyn Moyle, Enterprise Art reviewer. She stated:
“More than 3,000 slides were submitted to the 1990 Calgene Contemporary Fine Art Competition. Jurors Wayne Thiebaud and David Gilhooly selected 59 works, from all over the United States.”
She went on discussing some other pieces in the show and then said:
“However, I liked even better a painting by Ginna P. Lagergren of Hailey, Idaho…Titled ‘Rich and Rural #1, this beautifully painted landscape remined me of Wayne Thiebaud’s pastel cakes and pies, completely unreal, lacking existential agony.”
As a result of this exhibit I was invited to continue being represented by the Natsoulas Gallery. – G.P.L.