Times-Standard

Sharon Letts / The Times-Standard

Article Launched: 02/26/2008 01:30:55 AM PST

A collection of paintings by the late internationally known artist William Utermohlen is on display this month at the Art Foundry Gallery at 10th and R streets in Sacramento.

”Inside Alzheimer's: Portraits of the Mind” features a series of Utermohlen's self-portraits that show the effects of his dementia from Alzheimer's disease.

Assemblywoman Patty Berg attended the opening reception of the Utermohlen exhibit at the State Capitol and said she was moved at the insight the paintings revealed into the world of this debilitating disease.

According to Berg, it's worth the trip.

”This is a rare opportunity to see the world through the eyes of someone living with Alzheimer's,” said Berg, D-Eureka. “Mr. Utermohlen used his final years to leave an astonishing legacy.”

As the former executive director of the Area 1 Agency on Aging in Eureka, Berg is especially familiar with the extent to which Alzheimer's affects the aging.

Utermohlen, an American artist who resided in London prior to his death last year, began the series of self-portraits as he slipped into dementia after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's disease is a brain disorder named for German physician Alois Alzheimer, who first described it in 1906. According to the Alzheimer's Association's Web site (www.alz.org), Alzheimer's is a progressive and fatal brain disease.

More than 5 million Americans suffer from the disease.

Alzheimer's destroys brain cells, causing problems with memory, thinking and behavior severe enough to affect work, lifelong hobbies or social life. Alzheimer's gets worse over time, and it is fatal. Today it is the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States.

Utermohlen was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 1995. Those close to him said that when he learned of his illness he made the decision to study it through his art.

”He began to try to understand it by painting,” said his wife, Patricia Utermohlen, an art historian, in a recent New York Times interview. “The interest in his paintings as a chronicle of illness is bittersweet because it has outstripped the recognition he received even at the height of his notable career.”

Dr. Bruce Miller is a neurologist with the University of California who studies artistic creativity in people with brain diseases.

”Sometimes there's use of beautiful, subtle color,” explained Miller. “Alzheimer's affects the right parietal lobe in particular, which is important for visualizing something internally and then putting it onto a canvas. The art becomes more abstract, the images blurrier and vague, more surrealistic, as in the case of Utermohlen's portraits.”

The Sacramento exhibit is meant to shed light on the illness, which by 2050 will increase in numbers, from the current 500,000 people in California who suffer from it, to 1.5 million.

”It is our hope that the Utermohlen exhibition will direct the attention of policymakers and the public to the plight of Alzheimer's sufferers and their caregivers,” said Anne Burns Johnson, president and CEO of Aging Services of California.

The exhibition is being held in conjunction with the organization's annual Public Policy Conference, which was attended by about 300 senior living and care professionals from across the state.

The art and Alzheimer's exhibition is part of an international tour, which included recent showings in Paris, home to its official gallery, the Galerie Beckel-Odille-Boicos, as well as London, New York, Boston and Los Angeles.

”Mr. Utermohlen's art is beautiful enough to stand on its own, that it also promotes such an important cause as Alzheimer's awareness is a gift to the community,” said Abby Davis, Art Foundry Gallery's manager of the show.

Aging Services of California, a nonprofit agency, brought the exhibition to the state Capitol to educate the public about dementia and available care options.

Aging Services of California represents nearly 100,000 seniors residing in, and receiving services from, the state's 400 nonprofit providers of affordable senior housing, continuing care retirement communities, assisted living, skilled nursing, and home and community-based care. According to a press release, Aging Services' advocacy of healthy, secure and independent aging includes public policy development, professional education and training, and public outreach -- the latter featuring the statewide consumer education campaign, “Aging is an Active Verb,” and Web site, www.aging.org.

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”Inside Alzheimer's: Portraits of the Mind” is on display at the Art Foundry Gallery, 1021 R St. in Sacramento, through the end of February (www.artfoundryinc.com). Reproductions of some of the pieces are also being displayed this month at the state Capitol at the entrance to the Governor's Office.

For more information, visit www.aging.org.