Lucia Stern was born Martha Ida Lucia Karker and was an important figure in Wisconsin progressive art. Although her formal education was in music and literature (1918-1922), she was increasingly drawn to visual art. Her early influences were Matisse and Picasso, the two giants who also influenced each other. In 1930, she married Milwaukee lawyer-politician Erich Stern with whom she took annual trips to Europe, each time expanding their art connections. She was a friend
of many important champions of non-objective art, including eminent Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), who painted a portrait of her, with whom she exhibited and whose book on art theory, titled, Vision in Motio...