Joseph Plavcan painted his way into Erie history. New Erie Art Museum exhibit explores how

Joseph Plavcan made his reputation as Erie's most influential painter through his work on canvas and in the classroom.

His pieces have been shown at galleries and museums nationwide.

And in the 38 years he taught commercial art at what was then Erie Technical High School, Plavcan mentored students who also achieved acclaim in their hometown and abroad.

They include Roy Ahlgren, op-art pioneer Richard Anuszkiewicz, John Silk Deckard, Herb Beard, Vitus J. Kaiser and John Vahanian.

But what about Plavcan?

Who taught him?

How did he apply the lessons he received as a student?

A new exhibit at the Erie Art Museum offers a multitude of answers.

"Joseph Plavcan: The Making of an Artist" charts the career path of Plavcan from his days as a student at Erie's Academy High School in the 1920s up until his days as an established artist and instructor in the 1950s.

It is a period that includes Plavcan's return to Erie in the early 1930s to raise a family. He came back home after he had traveled in Europe, had works displayed in Chicago and elsewhere and graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

The period marked Plavcan's growth as an artist and his start as a teacher at Erie Technical High School, a job he took in 1932 to make a living during the Great Depression.

The period also saw the bonds between Plavcan and Erie grow to the point that the two became inextricable.

The relationship has flourished even after Plavcan's death in 1981 at age 72. His paintings — many of Presque Isle and the bayfront and other Erie scenes — continue to hang in museums and attract collectors, as do the works of his artistic progeny.

As "Joseph Plavcan: The Making of an Artist" demonstrates, Erie helped shape Joseph Plavcan and Joseph Plavcan helped shape how Erie sees itself.

"It is such a quintessential Erie story," said the Erie Art Museum's executive director, Laura Domencic. "He was such a talented individual who was much supported by the community."

"People recognized his talent," Domencic said. "There was a real nurturing. Then he came back and passed on his experience to others. There's a reciprocity there because he was so supported by the community and he gave so much back as a teacher."

Plavcan's early career on display, with more to come

"Joseph Plavcan: The Making of an Artist" opened on Jan. 29. The exhibit — the Erie Art Museum's first major Plavcan show since 2008 — has no end date at this point.

The current display of 54 oil paintings by Plavcan, as well as nine paintings by his wife and others, will make way in late September for another group of works that will showcase Plavcan's career after the 1950s — an era in which he produced some of his best-known pieces: acrylic paintings whose day-glo-like colors and more abstract compositions veer toward the psychedelic.

The works in the current exhibit are less experimental and more representational. They still highlight Plavcan's lifelong fascination with color and his penchant to infuse a dream-like quality into his depictions of nature and street scenes alike.

A third stage of the exhibit, which is yet to be scheduled, will feature more of Plavcan's later works as well as works by his teachers and students.

"This is just the first chapter," said Plavcan enthusiast and gallerist Steve Wood.

Local collectors were instrumental in loaning works

Wood brokered the sales of numerous Plavcan works when he owned the Bayfront Gallery in Erie until it closed in 2019.

The Erie Art Museum turned to Wood and his deep knowledge of Plavcan to help locate collectors willing to loan the museum paintings for the exhibit. The Art Museum has about 63 Plavcan works in its permanent collection, but looked outside its holdings to bolster "Joseph Plavcan: The Making of an Artist." Forty-four of the works in the current exhibit are on loan, according to the Art Museum.

Several local collectors loaned their Plavcan works, as did the Erie County Public Library and the Hagen History Center. Another key lender is Plavcan's daughter Lisa Plavcan Drumm, of Akron, Ohio.

"I was able to round up a good deal," Wood said with a laugh. "I kind of know where the gold is buried."

Roger and Nedra Richards are among the local collectors who loaned their treasured Plavcan works to the Erie Art Museum for the new exhibit.

Roger Richards, an Erie lawyer and businessman, said he first became interested in Plavcan's work when he saw some of his paintings at the Erie Club, which got them on loan from the Erie Art Museum.

"My first acquisitions were from his earliest timeframe when he was still at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts," Richards said in an email. "Through the years I have tried to acquire a sequential selection of his work product that follows a chronology of his changes in painting style. My favorite is his last phase in acrylics."

Richards said the current exhibit, which covers Plavcan's earlier paintings, "is a good representation of that period; and I was particularly impressed with his family’s sharing of their private collection, which I had never seen. I would encourage one to visit this stage of his works because there will be later exhibits of his other phases."

Richards also recommended another part of an exhibit — the showing, on a wall at the far end of the exhibit hall, of an hour-long interview that Plavcan had with WQLN-TV in March 1980. The interview is particularly enlightening, Richards said, "if you really want to know more about Joe Plavcan's painting philosophy on color."

Exhibit captures Erie's embrace of an artist

Some of Plavcan earliest paintings — works he created while in his teens — anchor the opening section of "Joseph Plavcan: The Making of an Artist." He painted them while under the tutelage of another iconic Erie artist, George Ericson, better known as Eugene Iverd, famous for his Saturday Evening Post covers.

Ericson taught Plavcan at Academy High School, where Plavcan originally enrolled in shop classes. After breaking machinery, according to one of the detailed biographical sketches that are part of the Erie Art Museum's show, Plavcan was encouraged to find another field of study. He visited Ericson's room, and the artist as a young man gained a tutor.

The Erie community embraced Plavcan as he sought to follow Ericson's advice and get formal training in art. With Plavcan's family lacking funds, Plavcan became the first student to receive a scholarship from the Erie Art Club, the predecessor of the Erie Art Museum.

He got more financial help from the Erie Woman's Club. It sponsored him as he produced 100 small landscape paintings that he sold for $5 each at Severin's, and Erie art store. By 1926, Plavcan had enough money to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Plavcan was 18. He was on his way — with Erie's assistance.

"They saw art education as really significant," the Erie Art Museum's Domencic said.

A life and a city come alive on canvas

Several of the small landscapes are on display in "Joseph Plavcan: The Making of an Artist," as are so many other works that chronicle the life of Plavcan and Erie.

A haunting portrait of Plavcan and his wife, Catharine Burns Plavcan, searching for a house during the Great Depression.

An action scene of a night football game at Veterans Memorial Stadium.

Scenes from Erie's bayfront and neighborhoods, with plenty of church steeples and other landmarks.

At the start of the exhibit hangs "The Classroom" from 1940. It is a portrait of one of Plavcan's classes at Erie Technical High School, which is now Erie High School at 3325 Cherry St.

The painting, like the overall exhibit, displays Plavcan's "connection to the community," as Domencic said. "It's definitely about his relationship to the community and to the place."

And how Plavcan thrived in it.

"We are learning things every day that we didn't know before," Steve Wood said of Plavcan's growth as an artist. "It makes for a great show. I'm looking forward to the next phase."

If you go

"Joseph Plavcan: The Making of an Artist" is on display at the Erie Art Museum's Nicholas Gallery, on the second floor. The exhibit will change with a display of different Plavcan works in late September, and will change for a third and final time with another set of different works on a date the museum has yet to determine.

The Erie Art Museum, 20 E. Fifth St., is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 6 p.m. It is closed Monday and Tuesday.

Admission is $10 for adults and $8 for seniors and students. Admission is free for museum members and visitors 16 and younger.

Several Plavcan works in the exhibit are marked for sale. The Erie Art Museum has more information on several original works that are available for purchase.

Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Art Museum show explores bonds between painter Joseph Plavcan and Erie