The GVSU Art Gallery serves as the steward of two comprehensive artist holdings, or catalogues raisonnés. These two catalogues rainsonnés not only consist of the largest public collections of physical artwork known but also each artist's life timeline, scholarship, and recorded interviews. 

In addition, it is our goal to develop new catalogues raisonnés that focus on local artists and their comprehensive holdings.

Based in Grand Rapids, Alten created more than 3,000 works of art during his prolific career, including landscapes, seascapes, portraits, and floral and still-life compositions. Working in a traditional representational style of painting, Alten incorporated the aesthetics and techniques of the Impressionist Movement in his paintings by infusing them with light and punctuating them with deft brushwork.

Early twentieth-century Grand Rapids delighted in Mathias Alten’s art. Impressed with his prodigious output, reviewers, collectors, and casual observers drew inspiration from canvases that brought painterly views of recognizable vistas, as well as the world outside of West Michigan, to the inhabitants of the Furniture City.

Mathias J. Alten Online Digital Library

Merizon’s artistic career began in 1927 when he was only seven years old. His mentor was a graphic designer who happened to be the father of his neighborhood friend. This relationship was validation and encouragement from an adult who shared Merizon’s passion for representing the world on paper and canvas. The artist pursued his artwork through the support of his community and family until the end of his life in 2010.

Armand Merizon was born to Dutch immigrants of French extraction in Kalamazoo, Michigan. When he was three years old, his family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he spent his life focused on his artwork. He enjoyed forays to the Southwest, the East Coast, and Europe. His work has a wide range of subject matter, medium, and genre, and is found in many institutional and private collections.

Armand Merizon Online Digital Library

Building and maintaining accurate catalogues raisonnés involves active auction monitoring, correspondence with collectors worldwide, database management, and a passion for amplifying an artist's full contributions to one's community.

If you believe, as we do, that art matters because our stories matter; that visual art-viewing experiences have the power to spark conversations, action, and reflection on core themes of social justice, human rights, and empathy that align with the university's philosophy of liberal education, then please consider supporting this work today.