ESU Invites the General Public to View Works of Sterling Strauser as Part of Inauguration Week Activities for President Marcia G. Welsh, Ph.D.

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Posted by: admin on March 20, 2013, No Comments

As part of Inauguration Week activities for East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania’s President, Marcia G. Welsh, Ph.D., the university invites the general public to view works of the late acclaimed, self-taught artist Sterling Strauser in The Sterling Strauser Gallery at ESU, located at 562 Independence Road, EastStroudsburg, Pa.  The gallery will open on Wednesday, April 3 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at no cost. 

The week-long inaugural celebration of President Welsh begins on Monday, April 1 and will culminate on Saturday, April 6 will her official installation as the thirteenth president of ESU.  Dr. Welsh was appointed at the conclusion of a national search conducted by ESU and assumed her duties in July 2012. She succeeds Dr. Robert J. Dillman, who retired after 16 years as the university’s president.  For information about other events during inauguration week at ESU, visit esu.edu/inauguration.

ESU’s Sterling Strauser Gallery officially opened in May 2012 and features the works of Strauser, who lived and painted in East Stroudsburg from 1928 to 1995.  The Gallery was made possible thanks to a generous donation of 114 of Strauser’s paintings by Grey and Linda Carter and family of McLean, Va. Currently in a temporary location, the gallery will have a permanent home in ESU’s Keystone Center, when construction of  Phase I  is completed in 2015.

Sterling Boyd Strauser (1907 – 1995), whose German name means “one who binds the flowers,” was born in Bloomsburg, Pa., in 1907, and later moved to East Stroudsburg, Pa., with his wife, Dorothy. Sterling and Dorothy were quick to influence the arts throughout the Pocono Region, both as well-known collectors and promoters of folk and outsider art.

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 painting, 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.

For more information about The Sterling Strauser Gallery, please contact ESU’s Division of Research and Economic Development at 570-422-7920.