Wall of Watercolor, Donated paintings on display at Verna Belle's Cafe

By Becky Fitzgerald on June 22, 2017

School’s out for summer, but that doesn’t mean the art display at Verna Belle’s Café will be absent. Several donated paintings are now on exhibit on the café’s south wall, where pieces created by Manhattan and Ogden art students usually rest.

Three of the pieces were painted by former resident Lucy Mulroney, one was done by F. Gene Ernst, a former Passport member, and a fifth is a print by the late Charles H. Sanderson, a Kansas native. The Meadowlark Hills Art Committee plans to find homes for these pieces in our common areas.

Formerly of Clay Center where she was a member of the local arts council, Mulroney lived on the west tower’s fifth floor from early 2016 until her death this past March at the age of 92. She joined the Art Committee soon after moving to Meadowlark Hills, and took part in the weekly Painting for Fun sessions, offering suggestions to other participants. Mulroney studied watercolor techniques in Japan and Monterey Bay, Calif. She taught art in several communities, including Junction City, Fort Leavenworth, and for 25 years, for USD 379 in Clay County.

Her apartment walls were dotted with her watercolor paintings of barns, houses, trees and flowers, and her storage unit held several more. Wanting to share Mulroney’s passion for art with her Meadowlark friends and neighbors, her grandson, David Toelle, donated the three Mulroney paintings to Meadowlark. 

Monarch Migration is an original watercolor painted in 1990 by the late F. Gene Ernst, a longtime Manhattan resident and Kansas State graduate. Many know Ernst because of his years at K-State in the College of Architecture and Design. He taught architecture for 25 years, and in the early 1970s, was head of the architecture department. After he retired in 1992, Ernst found great pleasure in his artwork, drawing and painting during his extensive travels or as he spent time at his summer home in Colorado.  He was a member of the Kansas Watercolor Society as well as the Manhattan Arts Center Watercolor Studio.

Ernst died in 2013 during a stay at Bramlage House. His son Steve later moved from Idaho to his father’s former home in Manhattan, and in recent months, Steve has sorted through the original watercolors and prints his father left behind. Monarch Migration is one of several prints and original works Steve donated to Meadowlark Hills.

The third painter currently represented at Verna Belle’s, the late Charles Sanderson, has something in common with both previously mentioned artists. Like Ernst, Sanderson studied architecture at Kansas State, and he often incorporated geometric elements into his paintings. After receiving a master’s in Fine Arts from Fort Hays State, Sanderson chose a career path similar to Mulroney’s, teaching art in Kansas public schools. He also taught at K-State, Wichita State University and Friends University.

Sanderson, who died in 1993, was known for abstract-realist Kansas landscapes, and the print in Verna Belle’s reflects this style and subject matter. The print was donated by fifth floor resident Marcia Smies.

Paintings in the Meadowlark Hills art collection generally have Kansas subjects or were created by artists born and/or working in Kansas. Before accepting additions to the collection, the Art Committee considers the works’ esthetic merit and/or historic significance. If you have a fine art piece you’d like to donate now or ones you’d like to bequeath to Meadowlark Hills, please contact Becky Fitzgerald, Development Director, (785) 323-3843, for more information.