COLORADO SPRINGS, CO.- The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College presents the special exhibition Scenes from Life: Drawings by Bernard Arnest, on view Jan. 19-June 2, 2019.

The most ambitious project of his career, Scenes from Life, is a series of 51 large drawings that encapsulated his reactions to a world that he has decided was essentially tragic. The subject matter can be challenging, depicting human strife and conflict, but the images are beautifully rendered. Scenes from Life is Bernard Arnest’s “Goldberg Variations,” distilling a lifetime of experience into a few harrowing images that are regrettably as relevant today as they were in 1975. This series, presented in its entirety, is a 2017 gift from the widow and children of the artist.

Bernard Arnest studied under Boardman Robinson and Henry Varnum Poor at the Fine Arts Center’s Art School from 1935-1939. He received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1940, and had his first solo show at the San Francisco Museum of Art. During WWII, he served as Chief War Artist for the U.S. Army Historical section in the European theater. Following the war, he worked in New York City exhibiting at the Whitney Annual of American Painting, the Pittsburgh International, Corcoran Biennial then and subsequently, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. In 1947, he became chief instructor at the Minneapolis School of Art and prior to coming to Colorado Springs, he was an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Minnesota. In 1957, he returned to Colorado Springs and served as both the head of the FAC Art School (which became the Colorado College Art Department) and Professor of Art at Colorado College.

Scenes from Life: Drawings by Bernard Arnest is opening in conjunction with the 100th Anniversary of the opening of the Broadmoor Art Academy (BAA) in 1919, a national magnet for arts and culture in the early 1900s. At its' inception, the BAA, which evolved into the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in 1936, energized the region and created a modern movement to elevate artistic expression for residents and visitors to the Pikes Peak Region. A century after the founding, the FAC celebrates the ingenuity of the artists and patrons who helped to shape the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College into the museum, performing arts theatre, and community art school it is today, and how the BAA's visionary roots are setting the stage for the next generation of arts and cultural enthusiasts.