ESU to Host Sterling Strauser’s Pocono Mountains Event

Join East Stroudsburg University President Marcia G. Welsh, Ph.D. for a special celebration and live art auction to honor the late acclaimed, self-taught artist, Sterling Strauser. This event will be held in the Sterling Strauser Gallery in the ESU Innovation Center, located at 562 Independence Road, East Stroudsburg, on June 5 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. This show, titled “Sterling Strauser’s Pocono Mountains,” highlights the painter’s views of the Pocono Region– its unique people, places, and landmarks.

Previously unseen works of Strauser, who lived and painted in East Stroudsburg from 1928 to 1995, will be featured. Strauser’s art is included in the permanent collections of the American Museum in Bath, England; the Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, Pa.; Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa.; Everhart Museum, Scranton, Pa.; Cheekwood Museum and Vanderbilt University, both in Nashville, Tenn.; Maier Museum of Art, Lynchburg, Va.; and numerous private and corporate collections.

In addition to his paintings, Strauser served as a teacher and principal of the grade school in Mount Pocono from 1928 to 1929. He also worked at the International Boiler Works in East Stroudsburg where he began as a shipping clerk in 1930 and retired as company secretary in 1962. Local collectors will lend to the exhibit their personal Strauser paintings featuring people, places and things from the Poconos.

The auction is also a tribute to Dorothy Strauser, his wife and an artist whose original watercolor paintings and fabric hookings are brightly colored expressions of American craft that display a unique way of life. In her lifetime, she had one-person shows at the Everhart and Burliuk Museums and exhibited at Bertha Shafer and Frank Lee Galleries and the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City.

This is part of a series of events held at ESU to honor Strauser and his legacy. The first was held in May 2012 and was followed by subsequent shows that also featured the works of nationally and internationally-known outsiders, self-taught artists that the Strausers promoted.  Proceeds from the event will benefit the Sterling Strauser Art Gallery.

It is not all about the art. This year’s auction will pair Strauser’s art of the Pocono region with food samples from regional restaurants, revealing the true flavor of the Poconos to all who attend. There will be a live auction of unseen works from the Sterling Strauser family’s private collection, and a silent auction that will allow attendees to bid on the works of many well-known Pocono artists, including Sterling and Dorothy Strauser.

The Sterling Strauser Gallery, housed in the university’s Innovation Center, 562 Independence Road, was made possible thanks to a generous donation of 114 of Strauser’s paintings by Grey and Linda Carter and family of McClean, Va. Carter is a private art dealer and artist’s representative. In 1964, after meeting Sterling Strauser, Carter began buying and selling works of art to meet his desire to acquire an art collection. His gift to ESU was intended to honor his longtime friend.

Registration for this event is $50.00 per person. Register online at esu.edu/strauser2015 or call 570-422-7000 for more information.

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