Jane Catherine Lauer, The Steam Train. Oil On Canvas Signed Lower Right

Jane Catherine Lauer, The Steam Train.

Oil on canvas signed lower right J. Lauer

Jane Catherine Lauer was an American artist. She was the Chair of the Art Department at Mary Manse College in Toledo, Ohio.


Jane Lauer, born in 1907, formerly Catherine Gavin Lauer, specialized in oil and watercolor painting of landscapes, still lifes, cityscapes, and religious subjects.
Some of her works were in the Cubist style.

She was a member of the Ursuline Convent in Toledo from 1936 and was a teacher at the Academy of St. Ursula and, from 1945, at Mary Manse College until its closure in 1975.
- She then moved to the Ursuline Center, where she was an artist in residence and had a studio at the Academy Convent on Indian Road.
In 1978, she designed the coat of arms of Reverend James R. Hoffman, when he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Toledo.

In this work Jane Catherine Lauer asserts a very personal style by painting this composition in sharp colors to favor large flat areas of color and contrasts. We are struck by the absence of human beings in this American city as if deserted, but crossed by a steam train progressing on a railroad track.

This atmosphere can only make us think of the inspiration that another American painter with a very particular universe, Edward Hopper , was able to bring to her.