08-20-2023 Harford Magazine - Flipbook - Page 28
A collection of paintings by Sauers in his studio.
in one hand and sketchbook in the other,
unobtrusively dashing off drawings of
historic neighborhoods (Fells Point, Little
Italy), the rebirth of the Inner Harbor and
the original Pride of Baltimore, before it sank
in 1986. Several of Sauers’ sketches appeared
on the op-ed pages of The Baltimore Sun.
Retiring in 1989, he moved to Whitetop,
Virginia, where he honed his landscape skills
and tutored others near the artsy town of
Abingdon, from which his forebears came.
Sauers reveled in the sylvan setting, often
ascending great heights to paint vistas along
the Appalachian Trail.
“Once, I was working just below the
summit of a 5,200-foot peak when, to my
right, out of nowhere comes an Air Force
plane — a B-52, I think — doing mountainterrain training,” he said. “There I was,
looking down into the cockpit and waving to
the pilot.”
He and his wife moved back to Harford
County in 2004 to be near family. Three
years ago, stricken during the pandemic, he
was rushed to the hospital, his son Sam, a
paramedic, at his side.
“John fought off COVID before they had
any medicine to fight it and was one step
short of [needing] a ventilator,” said Jonathan
West, a prizewinning artist from Bel Air and
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| Fall 2023 | harfordmagazine.com
Sauers sometimes uses a fallen bird quill to sketch.
longtime friend. Convalescing, Sauers sat on
his front porch, oxygen prongs in his nose,
and polished off a painting of the golden
soybean field across the road, the ubiquitous
crow flying in the distance.
West purchased that work, one of 30
Sauers’ paintings in his collection.
“John has a persistence of vision
reminiscent of [French painter Paul]
Cézanne,” West said. “He has an honest,
childlike reverence for Mother Nature;
he sees the majesty of the Almighty in
everything.
“When inspiration arrives, he needs
to record it. As a passenger in a moving
car, he’ll sketch landscapes he sees out
the window. Some of his [ideas] are on
restaurant place mats and napkins; I have a
pizza box painting that I’ve framed up nicely.
“The man sees everything as art. He can’t
put his brush down, and that’s what keeps
him alive.”
