The precisionist school of modern art lasted for less than a decade. With its simplistic, linear compositions often of industrial sites or architectural details, it flourished in the United States from the 1920s to 1930s.

IF YOU GO

What: Robert Herrmann II: Cincinnati's Precisionist     When: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. most Saturdays, through May 28     Where: Cincinnati Art Galleries, 225 E. Sixth St., downtown     Artwork: Prices range from $2,000-$6,500     Information: 381-2128

        Inspired by cubism and dealing with form rather than narrative, it evolved into abstractionism and was soon lost.

        Gerald Murphy, the great friend to F. Scott Fitzgerald, was a precisionist painter, but for the most part he painted in oblivion.

        Cincinnatian Robert Herrmann was also of the precisionist school and also labored in oblivion. But his lack of acknowledgement was by choice; he hid his work from the world for 40 years.

        Had it not been for his sister, Marion Grasser, the paintings would have remained unknown. An exhibition of Mr. Herrmann's work is on view at Cincinnati Art Galleries, through May 28.
       

Architectural details

        Ms. Grasser recovered more than 100 canvases from her brother's home after his death in 1996. She contacted Randy Sandler, owner of Cincinnati Art Galleries, who liked the work enough to mount a show. The exhibition was a success. The current exhibit, Robert Herrmann Cincinnati's Precisionist,is a second grouping of Mr. Herrmann's paintings — 42 in all.

        These architectural landscapes dating from the 1950s and '60s are interesting examples of cubist realism. The subjects — skylines, bridges, factories, apartment houses — have been rendered in vivid, expressive color with their forms flattened and reduced to the most essential elements.

        Concentrations on architectural details — the girders holding plates of glass in a skyscraper, the grid of street lights and telephone wires, the entryway to a museum — create seductive patterns and the euphoria one feels when “pared down” is done very, very well.

        “I think these are wonderful paintings,” Mr. Sandler said. “You get a very nice feel of what was being done by the masters of the period. I think they have a regionalist precisionist feel.”

        Evoking the work of Charles Sheeler, Ralston Crawford and Charles Demuth whose work he chose as the subject of his master's thesis, Mr. Herrmann's work would most certainly have received positive notices in the early 20th century.

        Now at the beginning of the 21st, we have the opportunity to consider this work anew.
       

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