Warren Rohrer
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1927 - 1995
Roots run deep in the rich soil here in Lancaster, where tradition is cultivated like corn or barley. Crops and culture intertwine in the meticulous patterns perfected again and again by both the plow and the quilting needle. While Warren Rohrer, a native son of Lancaster and of the Pennsylvania Dutch, never became the minister his parents planned him to be, he never strayed far from the field or the farm. Over and over he explored the patterns and roots of his upbringing in the patient marks and carefully layered colors of his paintings. His work, though modern and abstract, often matches the geometric precision and calculated craftsmanship of the traditional Amish quilts he and his wife began to collect in the 1970s. Over time, Rohrer's art evolved with the changing landscapes and the different lands he traveled. After a lifetime of teaching new generations of budding painters at Philadelphia's University of the Arts and reading and interpreting the landscape in his own work.
If the name Warren Rohrer is not a familiar one, it may be because this American painter, who died in 1995, chose to remain in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, rather that join the urban Avant-garde in New York. Rohrer's history is unusual: raised in a Mennonite community, he set out to be a Bible scholar before taking up painting. In the early 1960s, he dedicated himself to painting his native Pennsylvania landscape. On a trip to Europe in 1972, he visited exhibitions of Mark Rothko and Barrett Newman, and subsequently began to make abstract paintings in a square format, incorporating grids. – Excerpt from The Art Newspaper, July/August 2003, NYC, author S.D.
Education
1952–53 Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA
1951 B.S., Madison College (now James Madison University), Harrisonburg, VA
1950 B.A., Eastern Mennonite College, Harrisonburg, VA
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2010 Warren Rohrer: ... to make a live painting, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2008 Warren Rohrer: The Expanding Square, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2006 Warren Rohrer: The Pond Series, 1975-1976, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2005 Warren Rohrer: Field Language, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2004 Greater Simplicity: Paintings, 1978–1992, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2003 Turning Point: Paintings 1968–1972, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Warren Rohrer, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
2002 Warren Rohrer: Morning Fogs Trees and Leaves, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2000 Warren Rohrer, Field Language: Drawings and Paintings, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia,
PA
1998 Warren Rohrer: Variations on the Square, Paintings from 1972–1975, Locks Gallery,
Philadelphia, PA
1996 Warren Rohrer: The Breakthrough Years, Paintings from 1960s & 1970s, Locks Gallery,
Philadelphia, PA
1995 Warren Rohrer: Works on Paper, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1993 Warren Rohrer: New Paintings, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1991 Warren Rohrer: Field Language, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1990 Warren Rohrer: Selected Paintings 1973–1989, Ganser Gallery, Millersville University,
Millersville, PA
1989 Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1987 Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1986 CDS Gallery, New York, NY
Eastern Mennonite College, Harrisonburg, VA
1982 Warren Rohrer, Passage: An Exhibition of Paintings, Morris Gallery, The Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
1980 Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1978 Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1976 Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Lamagna Gallery, New York, NY
1974 Marian Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1972 North Lime Street, Lancaster, PA 1971 Makler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1969 Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA
1967 Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA
1965 Makler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1964 Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
1963 Wilcox Gallery, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA
Makler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1960 Robert Carlen Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Madison College, Harrisonburg, VA
Selected Public Collections
Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA
Eastern Mennonite College, Harrisonburg, VA
Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA
Goshen College, Goshen, IN
Hobson Pittman Collection, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, OR
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA
University of Delaware, Newark, DE
Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA
