Lyle Matoush, Professor Emeritus of Art at Southern Oregon University, Brings in the New Year with an Amazing Exhibition

Print by Lyle Matoush on Exhibition in the Thorndike Gallery at SOU January 2013

Lyle Matoush, Professor Emeritus of Art at Southern Oregon University, is a Master printmaker and artist. Though printmaking was his chosen medium, when the physical aspects of the process became too rigorous for him, Matoush began working with chalk pastels. This medium allows Matoush to explore his fascination with color and reflected light in works ranging in style from abstraction to realism. Matoush’s subject matter is often his immediate environment and he enjoys working from photographs he has taken. 

Pastel Painting by Lyle Matoush

Matoush earned his BA in 1957 from Colorado State College and his MA in 1960 from San Francisco State College. In 1965, he joined the art faculty at what was then Southern Oregon College. Though Matoush taught printmaking for over 30 years, he also taught drawing, ceramics, jewelry-making and color theory. Matoush retired from SOU in 1991.  

During a sabbatical leave from teaching in 1972, Matoush worked in a professional print shop in San Francisco. To become a master lithographer he studied alongside Master Lithographer Ernesto de Sota. At this time there were fewer than 50 master printers in the country. On another sabbatical in 1979, Matoush went to the University of California at Fullerton to learn photo-processes for printmaking and electro-forming techniques for making jewelry.  

Before Matoush retired from SOU, then President Joe Cox asked him to travel to the University of Guanajuato to teach printmaking for a few months. Juan Carlos, University President and soon to be Governor of the state of Guanajuato, who earned a Master’s Degree in Business Administration at SOU, introduced Matoush to a young man named Miguel Rivera. Rivera became Matoush’s interpreter and good friend.  

When Matoush left Guanajuato he invited Rivera to attend SOU and negotiated with Juan Carlos to help Rivera receive a scholarship. Matoush and his wife, Jime, invited Rivera to stay with them until he finished his degree. When Rivera returned to Guanajuato, Matoush gave him all his printing equipment. At the same time, the SOU Art Department gave the Guanajuato Art Department all their looms and the first lithographic press that Matoush had bought for the SOU Art Department. Rivera joined the University of Guanajuato in 1998 as Chair of the Art Department and also served as an Associate Professor of Printmaking and Computers in Art. In the fall of 2008, Rivera moved to the Kansas City Art Institute to serve as Chair of the Printmaking Program. 

In 1997, Matoush saw a film on pastels at the Degas: Beyond Impressionism exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago. Seeing this film led Matoush to try pastels, a material with which he had never worked. Switching from printmaking to pastels, Matoush started making about 10 to 12 pastel drawings a year, but as he progressed with the medium, his output increased to a piece every 8 to 10 days. Matoush continues to work daily and continues to be prolific. Matoush’s prints are mostly non-objective; his pastels are both objective and non-objective. Matoush is often inspired by what appears to be the ordinary. His new pastel drawings range in style and demonstrate the play of light and shadow on various subjects.

Lyle Matoush in studio with one of 35 pastels from the “Hidden Pines” series.

Matoush is one of the founders of the Northwest Print Council, which includes members from Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. He and his wife Jime have donated many prints to the collection of the Schneider Museum of Art. To support printmaking students and the museum’s print collection, Matoush and his wife Jime have started the Jime and Lyle Matoush Fund for Printmaking at SOU. To support this fund, all prints and pastels are offered for sale at a greatly reduced price for the duration of this exhibition.

Fifty percent of the proceeds on all artworks sold will be donated to the Jime and Lyle Matoush Fund for Printmaking at Southern Oregon University. This fund supports printmaking students in their artistic endeavors and enables the Schneider Museum of Art to augment its print collection. To purchase a print, please contact Schneider Museum of Art. 

This bio courtesy from all at Schneider Museum of Art